Thanksgiving week

Of course we don't have Thanksgiving here in Spain and almost never see turkey- but never fear - we won't go hungry. Tried a new place for dinner Sunday night. It was definitely a place to return. An excellent menu with many choices. Including veggies! IMO the ladies next to us ordered better but there's always next time. We opted for the white asparagus over the zucchini - theirs looked better. Live and learn. Menu items marked.  Service was outstanding! And the ambience was warm and welcoming.

Then Monday night another new restaurant, El Pinton... while not perfect it was very good and we will definitely return! 

OMG! A real REAL salad. Great big salad with spinach, frisée lettuce, strawberries, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, feta, walnuts, figs, pea tendrils. Just fabulous!

Phil started with the jamon - big surprise!

Then he had the costilla of black angus braised - 

and I ordered the brussels sprouts which were inedible - not cooked nearly enough!  I couldn't cut them with the steak knife they gave me for our shared meat course... but no worries - there was a MITO on the way home LOL

There are several levels of restaurants here in the same building - I think the menu of the tapas style - less high end part of the facility looks good enough to check out ....

so tomorrow is class night and we will be eating at home, but back out on Wednesday to Petit Comité 

Phil had his foie and duck starter and I had the mushroom carpaccio. He had steak and I had the orzo dish. We had chocolate coulant and semifrió for dessert. Always good and good service as well.

Holiday lights in our building are up and lit! We had our Thanksgiving dinner at AMARA and the chef made us a little dessert of roasted pumpkin with a custard topping and some crumbles. It was perfect because in the grand tradition of Thanksgiving - we overate and were already stuffed. We had to bring home leftovers. No turkey but we did have both pork and beef and chestnut soup! (Along with the pumpkin.)

Our final dinner out for Thanksgiving week was to MING2 for Chinese. Chongqing dry chile beef for me. Cumin lamb for P. I had hot & south soup and he had the wonton. We shared the MING fried rice and an app of gyozas (not pictured.). When we came home we snuck in carefully so as to not trigger the lights under the colonnade and I could snap a photo of our courtyard. Today we went out for coffee and found the oranges getting more and more orange, as well as an elf ready for posing with kids in front of the toy store. Holidays are coming. The official lighting of the holiday lights is tomorrow. Planning for big crowds starting tomorrow, through Three Kings Day. #sevillaholidays

off to Paris tomorrow.

a holiday photo

A holiday photo got me thinking about time, and place, and those who are no longer with us.  Or in the case of this photo - people yet to arrive - since the photo was taken  more than a year before I was born... 

Everyone in this photo is dead.  I knew them all - but at this stage in life I know a lot of dead people.  It happens. So here they are- the people who begat me.  The one exception, my aunt (who passed just last fall.)  

starting from the left - approximate ages at the time of the photo December 1952:

My great grandmother Ella Maas Heltman age 75 (born 1877- died 1969) aka Grandma Grape 

My aunt Phyllis Haight Mead age 18 (born 1934 - died 2024)

My grandmother Catherine Cox Haight age 45 (born 1907 - died 1969) aka Katie

My father Jack Edgar Heltman  age 24 (born 1928 - died 2001) aka Dad 

My grandmother Lorene Woellner Heltman age 49 (born 1903 - died 1989) aka Lori or the big granny

My great grandmother Margaret Woellner age 77 (born 1875 - died 1960) aka Maggie

My mother Alice Jane Haight Heltman age 22 (born 1930 - died 2010) aka Lil or Jane or Mom

My grandfather Edgar Milton Heltman age 49 (born 1903 - died 1983) aka Pop-Pop or Ed

photo taken by my grandfather Kingsley Haight age 44 (born1908 - died 1990)

So when I was growing up - we went to my grandparents house for dinner every Sunday - Ella (who we called Grandma Grape because we were apparently confused as children LOL) and Lori would cook a terrific meal - home made noodles with butter and croutons (also homemade) and every week a pie and a roast of some sort and coleslaw that we kids would grate veggies for on the finest side of the grater. We were also in charge of whipping the cream for the pie topping with a hand cranked mixer. Yes, I am that old. My father's mother and grandmother were fabulous cooks. My mother's mother made pork chops and applesauce LOL that was - to my knowledge- her only meal.

So it was a big deal - the night of this photo! My mother who knew nothing about cooking was entertaining all living generations of her and of my father's family for the holidays.  It seems they were having sandwiches made from cold cuts based upon a close perusal of the photo.  

My parents had married in November 1951 and moved into their first apartment on MacMillan Avenue in Clifton near the University of Cincinnati. My father had graduated from Miami University in 1950 both he and my mother had jobs. My father worked for the Sperti Company and my mother for the Cincinnati & Suburban Bell Telephone company. We used to hear my mother tell the story about how romantic my father's marriage proposal was "if you can find an apartment for $37.50 a month we can get married." Remember this was post WWII and there were severe housing shortages. 

So here is a photo of three generations together for the holidays at my parents apartment on MacMillan Avenue. And I began to think about this post when I came across this photo because I am older now than all but two of the folks in this photo and I am the oldest of the next (at that point yet unborn) generation. 

And the strangest thing about the whole tableau is that - they all look SOOO old  despite my "grandparents"  being decades younger than I am now, at and age roughly only 3-5 years younger than my great grandmothers were in this photo. YIKES!!!

I find that mind boggling. Of course - some of that is style based - clothes and hairdos etc. but not all of it...they lived through rationing and the war years - some of them had memories of the post Civil War period and lived through two World Wars a Flu epidemic and the great Depression. All those things are bound to age you. We of the mid boomer era of course had our own experiences - Vietnam etc. but we also had a lot of great stuff - astronauts, TV, expanding rights for women and blacks and gays (at least until recently) so maybe we have aged at different rates. Just musing on things....

So back to Christmas Eve 1952 - here are some more photos of the gathering - 

Three Ladies - a great grandma sandwiched between two my two grandmothers

 

My Dad's parents (my grandparents) dancing to the record player 

my Dad always had the latest hi-fi he could afford ! 

(remember they are both under 50 here!)

my Dad with his two grandmothers - Ella on the left and Maggie on the right 

So based upon the photos I would say the first family holiday event that my mother hosted went well. 

Things got more relaxed over the years- by the time this next photo was taken it was late 1950s (likely 1959) and the 1960s were about to take center stage- smoking/ ashtrays/ drinks and mid century decorating were raging. LOL

You will recognize a few folks- all now seven years older- Phyllis (second from left) is now married to Bill (far left) She's gone from 18 to 25 and was by then a mom of an almost two year old. My parents (center) are now parents of two girls my sister (4.5 years old) on Dad's lap and me (a few months shy of 6 years old) on his shoulder and a six month old son (no doubt asleep upstairs) in the newly constructed home in a subdivision (as was the time.) My grandmother (front right) was now 56 (but could still sit on the floor cross legged!) 

I will say it doesn't look like my mother's cooking has gotten appreciably better but maybe this was the cocktail hour... some sort of dip and crackers and three packs of cigarette and a least two ashtrays. Clearly days gone by... time flies- Today I am the only living person from the 1959 photo.

I do not take a single day for granted.