Reflections on a kitchen stove...

            It seems silly to be so excited about a new stove.  But I am.    Yesterday we ordered a new, top-of-the-line, gas range that will be delivered in two weeks.  I ordered the stove described in marketing jargon as “Black Ice”. That translates to a black appliance with stainless steel trim and a large window practically the size of the oven door.  No more peering into a tiny space to see if the muffins are browning or the soufflé has risen.  It has five burners, a griddle, a convection oven, a warming oven, and even a new self-cleaning system that is called Aqua Lift.  You pour water into a special cup in the oven, turn it on low and wait for the steam to clean the inside without any chemical fumes or 900-degree temperatures.  I had no idea these amenities existed. I am getting my wish to convert from electric to gas, the preferred form of cooking for serious chefs.   

            The mystery is how I came to love cooking and become the self-confident cook that I am. I didn’t spend time as a child watching my grandmother make delicious dishes from old family recipes She disliked cooking and household chores.  My mother told stories of growing up in a house where her mother laid on the sofa reading a book while calling out directions to others to get a meal ready.  She was an artist and a free spirit and far preferred books to any daily chores.  She did encourage me to love books.  My mother was not an extraordinary cook but once she married my father and became the wife of a diplomat she was far better at overseeing a staff of maids and planning menus than cooking. She planned dinner parties for large groups of guests as if she’d done this all her life.  She hadn’t… but she never seemed daunted by any of it.  

I grew up in Lima, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Bogota in big houses with “medieval kitchens” as my mother always referred to them.  Kitchens were always an afterthought in homes in South America because they were meant for maids to work in and not the ama de casa, or lady of the house. We had live in maids – a cook, a cleaning maid, as well as a chauffeur and gardener.  I only remember my mother in the kitchen when the cook had a day off or when we lived in Washington D.C. for short periods and hired help was out of the question. Looking back I wonder if she didn’t worry as to how I would fend for myself when I went away from home and had to cook for myself.

            It was when I married Art and moved to Santiago, Chile as a bride that I was faced with the reality of daily cooking.  I don’t recall feeling apprehensive but just happy to be making a meal for my new husband.  We rented a fourth-floor, walk-up apartment with picture windows on three sides and views of the snow covered Andes Mountains.  It was spacious with hardwood floors.  Stepping into the kitchen, maid’s room and laundry was a different story.  While the kitchen faced the Andes it was Spartan with dirty gray tile floors, marble counter tops and rusty enamel sink, a small  (apartment sized) gas stove, and a vintage refrigerator with a wobbly handle and freezer compartment the size of a lunch box.  The door of the refrigerator would not close tightly unless you slammed it hard and the oven door on the gas range had to be propped closed with a broom handle to get anything to bake evenly.

            Somehow I turned out eatable meals in this awful kitchen.  Art still talks about my Pork Chops with apricots, my homemade grape juice, fresh cooked beets done in a pressure cooker, and the cooked artichokes with lemon and butter sauce. Obviously he was blinded by newlywed bliss because I recall the burnt dishes I pulled out of the very unstable oven and Art swooping down to fill his plate and declaring it was all delicious.  That kept me from having a complete breakdown in the “medieval kitchen” I was trying to cook in.  I attribute much of my love of cooking to Art who would eat anything and declare it perfect. As an educator he knew the power of praise.  And it worked.  

            Nothing in Chile came ready-made.  We shopped at the feria on Sunday mornings bringing home straw baskets full of fresh fruits, veggies, and fish from the market and putting it away in the antique refrigerator to last us the week.  I learned to cook from ”scratch” which stood me in good stead in many places where I went to live.

            The student apartment at Terrace View in Blacksburg, Virginia with “modern” American appliances seemed a big step up.  But in two years we were living in San Jose ,Costa Rica in a garden apartment with one of those kitchens built with maids in mind …except we did not have a live in cook.  Back to the US to a traditional split level house in Huntsville, Alabama with a small and very ordinary American kitchen, followed by six years in a charming stone cottage on the 100-acre campus of Princeton Day School.  Charming…yes…but NOT the difficult kitchen again!  I made do and simply fed the family and guests and company and adapted to no counter space at all, an old electric stove and refrigerator.  Was this supposed to be part of the charm?

 The move to Manila, Philippines to a big house was my first experience managing a household staff.  I took one look at the kitchen – the gray marble floors, low counters built for short people, and the lack of air conditioning, and felt totally defeated.  I promptly hired a live in cook and cleaning maid and a day chauffeur and gardener.  I relinquished cooking for meal planning and shopping.  It was only on the cook’s day off that I would put on my bathing suit to keep cool, and venture out to the kitchen to attempt a meal in the 95 degree heat and humidity.

            Buying our first home in the Vermont mountains, we were so taken with the spectacular views while talking with the realtor, that we forgot to carefully check out the kitchen, and the inside of the house.  By then I was an expert on managing with no counter space.  Not only was I a good cook but an exceptionally neat one.  I would fix one thing, clean up and put everything away before getting out the next ingredients and starting the next part of the meal.   We eventually upgraded the kitchen to a more modern look with new refrigerator, granite countertops and tile backsplash but no additional counter space. Then we sold the house.

            In Dubai we lived in a luxurious apartment on the 22^nd floor overlooking the Arabian Sea for two years.  It was brand new with large rooms, picture windows, tile floors, plenty of closets, modern everything including kitchen.  As I soon discovered the kitchen was more for show and not designed for cooking in.  Most people in these apartments ate out. A one-person space, the kitchen had sleek black granite countertops that showed every speck of dirt, a small refrigerator, gas stove, a microwave and no pantry space or storage space.  Then we retired to Asheville and a comfortable townhouse with a spacious kitchen designed in the perect triangle as kitchens should be.  I marvel that it has taken me 40 years of married life to get here.

            Adding a new “top of the line” gas stove to this kitchen feels like a prize well earned over many years.  And it’s because I don’t take it for granted that I am excited, as most people would not be about simply adding a new appliance to the many we all seem to already have

            

            

Picking Up the Pace in Lisbon

     “Let’s spend our second week in Portugal in the city,” I suggested to Art.  “How about an “Airnb” in the center of Lisbon?”  He agreed that would be the perfect balance to our first week walking through the vineyards of the Douro Valley.

      I love browsing the “Airnb” website imagining living in various apartments and houses around the world, avoiding hotels and pretending not to be a tourist.  A photo entitled “Charming Apartment in Central Lisbon” immediately drew me in.  It was of an elegant long living room with high ceilings, a mirrored wall behind an off white slip covered sofa, a dark wood polished coffee table and two white barrel chairs, high ceilings, four tall windows with decorative wrought iron balconies overlooking the street, brown weathered looking wooden shutters, and oriental area rugs on a hardwood floor. The rest of the photos showed original stone walls in the dining room and bedroom contrasted with a sleek kitchen, modern appliances and black granite counter tops and a black and white tiled bathroom with large glass shower stall and traditional white bathroom fixtures.  Someone had decorated this apartment with the perfect balance of antique and modern.  Browsing other choices seemed pointless.  This was it!  Luckily it was not out of our price range and I booked it. 

       One way of arriving in Lisbon  is by cruise ship down the Rio Tejo from the Atlantic Ocean past the landmark Padrão dos Descobrimentos, the statue commemorating Henry the Navigator and Portuguese exploration. Art and I did this 41 years ago. Before we were married, after finishing our jobs in Paraguay, we boarded an Italian Costa line ship from Buenos Aires to Naples which made a stop in Lisbon.  Neither one of us remember much about Lisbon except for this statue. 

        We arrived this time to Lisbon at Santa Apolónia train station from Coimbra, where we had stopped overnight to visit the Universidade de Coimbra. In Coimbra we found ourselves in the middle of the Queima das Feitas, Burning of Ribbons, a traditional festivity of students celebrating graduation by burning ribbons.  Originating in Coimbra, this ritual is popular now in all universities in Portugal but only in May. It is considered one of the biggest student festivities in Europe, lasts 8 days, and includes parades, sports activities, gala balls, and other public events.  Queima das Feitas was an unexpected bonus as it is the most important week of the year in Coimbra. 

     Fado music also originated in Coimbra at the university.  Fado is a kind of popular urban folk music of mournful and lyrical songs, which express longings or saudades.  We went to the Centro Cultural de Fado, Fado Cultural Center, in Coimbra to hear these lyrical ballads sung by students and accompanied by a musician playing a twelve steel stringed guitar strung in six courses comprising two strings each.  To me it sounded like a gorgeous Renaissance lute or mandolin.

     We went everywhere in Portugal by train and were amazed what an organized, clean, easy, inexpensive way this is to travel.  Trains operate on time to the minute.  An added surprise were the friendly and helpful conductors who even spoke some English.  Once we figured out the system of taking a slip of paper from a machine at the ticket office in the big train stations and waiting for our number to pop up on a big screen to buy tickets, we learned that we could travel for half price!  There are definite advantages to being “seniors” even in foreign countries. Our train trips were never more than a few hours as Portugal is small.  We tried First class travel on our journey to Lisbon. The compartments are very sleek looking, with elegant dark blue upholstered seats, deep carpeting, insulated curtains that block out the sun, and an air of hushed silence that seems to announce “yes, you are in first class!”  There was even Wi-Fi on board but I wasn’t about to be distracted from the scenery that was continually changing from pastoral and hilly to flat and more populated as we approached Lisbon.

      Bernardo met us at 4:15 p.m. at our flat on Rua Sapateiros 86 in Baixa.  The taxi driver who took us from the station, knew right where to go although it is not a main thoroughfare. He drove down several blocks of a narrow cobblestone street barely wide enough for two cars. Sapateiros means shoemakers and this is one of many streets in a part of Lisbon that was rebuilt after the earthquake of 1755 by the Marquis de Pombal.  I learned that this is where craftsmen and artisans lived and worked.  Parallel streets are Rua da Plata, Rua dos Douradores, Rua dos Fanqueiros, and Rua dos Correios – names for silversmiths, goldsmiths, clothiers and postal workers.

      A first glimpse of the “charming flat” confirmed that I had hit the jackpot on Airnb.  The living room looked exactly like the pictures online.  Bernardo, gave us a “walk through” and mentioned that the flat belongs to Bruno Ribeiro, a handsome (I looked him up on Google) opera tenor who performs in major opera houses and concert halls around the world.  He rents his apartment in this coveted area of Lisbon to tourists like us.  “Opera star!” we exclaimed in complete amazement.  “But we love opera.  This must have been meant to be,” I exclaimed.  I’m not sure Bernardo knew quite what to make of us and our enthusiasm for opera.

      Bernardo left us with a ring of keys including an old, very large brass one, that opened the antique lock of the tall wooden double front door of the flat. This flat was to become our home for the next six days. In the kitchen we found a bottle of red wine, and an assortment of pates, cheeses, and crackers and toasted our first night in the opera singer’s flat, reenergized to begin exploring.  I must admit that all was perfect until the next morning when we went to make eggs for breakfast and could not find a single knob on the black sleek glass stove top nor could we figure out how the dishwasher turned on as there were no dials or knobs on that either!  Yes, we were in an old apartment but with a kitchen so modern that we Americans couldn’t even turn on an appliance!  A call to the agency had Rita on the phone explaining to Art how to use the appliances.  I decided that perhaps we Americans are not quite up to the most modern European standards.

       Stepping out of our apartment building we met the city on our doorstep.  One block over is Rua Augusta, the pedestrian shopping street, teeming from morning till night with shoppers, tourists, outdoor cafes, and entertainers such as the stationary, real life statue figures, and musicians playing for money. (I couldn’t help but remember that Rua Augusta was the most popular shopping street in São Paulo, Brazil.  It was near the American Consulate where my father worked when we lived there in the early 1960’s when I was in high school.) 

      Walking several more blocks we found quiet cobblestone streets closed to pedestrian traffic with dozens of indoor/outdoor restaurants all serving Portuguese menus. No chain restaurants here. A Portuguese menu has a dozen choices of fresh fish including all kinds of sea urchins and shell fish, as well as lots of meat like pork, beef, or lamb with vegetables, boiled or crispy fried potatoes, fresh salads with green leaf lettuce and tomatoes topped with vinegar and olive oil, and crusty bread. Every meal is accompanied by a whole or half bottle of wine or an ice cold cerveza or beer.  The sobremesas or desserts could be a traditional flan or caramel custard, lots of fresh fruit, or pastries and cakes followed by the popular cafezinho or demitasse strong expresso coffee.  Food was simple, but so fresh and delicious.

       We are fans of the on/off double-decker city bus tours that have become popular around the world.  In Dubai even though we lived there, we took visitors on the Blue Bus to get an overview of a spread-out city. In Buenos Aires we took the open-air bus tour and spent a month going back to all the places we had seen along the way. Lisbon, with three million people, and so many different neighborhoods was the perfect place to buy a two-day ticket on the Yellow Bus. We took one route one day and a different route the next catching glimpses of Lisbon from one end to the other. A highlight remains the Museu do Azulejos or the Tile Museum which we went back to.  Portugal is known for it’s beautiful tile work and the museum has collected tiles that date back 500 years or more. 

      One day we walked to Rossio Train station to take the commuter train to Sintra towards the coast.  Here we spent the day overwhelmed by all the tour groups walking through the Palácio Nacional de Sintra.  A 4 km ride on a public bus took us up a dramatic one-way, steep windy road to the whimsical, multicolored Sintra: Palácio da Pena.  Built in 1885 for Ferdinand, II, this palace looks like it belongs in a magical fantasy world.

     Our stay in Lisbon was short but by the last day we knew where to find the supermarket and what to buy for breakfast, stopping on the way home at one of the many bakeries to pick up two large fresh croissants to have with our morning coffee.  What could be better?  We got to know our neighborhood, passing the same shops and restaurants each day.

     Although Portugal is viewed as one of the poorer countries in Europe, Lisbon is a gem. It is older historically that any other city in Europe dating back to the time of Julius Caesar. For us it seemed a vibrant place with a delightful mix of the old and the new.  The Portuguese are likeable, gentle, and friendly people who are completely grounded in their very long history and a love of home and country.  Closing the door to the flat the morning we left, I felt I had been part of this city…if only for a very short time.

             

Stay Put or Keep Moving?

            "We aren’t ready for the cruise/group bus tour crowd, right?” I asked Art a few months ago. I knew the answer. We have always seen the world on our own so why stop now?  For our spring trip abroad we opted for Inntravel – The Slow Holiday People.  I love the slogan that translates into “self guided walking tours” all over Europe - going at your own pace.  We chose The Valley of Gold, a seven-day exploration of the Douro Valley in the north of Portugal, on foot, and by train.

            Memories of the walks are of red tiled roofs and white stucco houses; views from high up looking down on the gentle Douro River; a leisurely river boat cruising slowly along but otherwise a landscape empty of signs of humanity; the six car Douro train going along the river to the end of the line and back every few hours; bountiful wildflowers  - fields of orangey red poppies, yellow and white daisies scattered artistically among terraced grape vines, and tiny purple violets peeking up next to very old cobblestone paths; Queen Anne’s lace waving gracefully in the wind; blue paintbrush along the tarmac; large fig trees with pleasing scalloped leaves; rose bushes overflowing around simple country cottages; deep clear blue skies without a cloud, no haze or pollution: a profound emptiness of people against a background of actively chirping birds; silvery leaves of olive trees shimmering in a slight breeze; the abundance of orange, lemon and tangerine trees dripping with unpicked fruit.  Few signs of movement, except in nature around us, a profound sense of peace far from the turmoil of world crises.  Smells of fragrant roses and overripe fruit, mixed with clean air that makes you want to store up plentiful gulps; an occasional whiff of gasoline if passing a tractor working in the vineyards, but too high up to catch the musky odor that comes from river banks. 

            Amongst the many travel notes from Inntravel is a gem of several passages written by a British traveler in the 1930’s coming to spend a holiday on the Symington’s Quinta do Vesuvio – the spot where our walking tour began.  We are walking again.  There seems to be no roads in this part of Portugal…it’s warm, marching straight up this mountain with no road and with nothing that in England we should even call a path.  As I climb higher and can see better, this strikes me as the country of a traveler’s dream…” Not much has changed since then.

            We learned that choosing a slow but well organized walking trip has some  surprising benefits.  It not only exercises the body but also the mind – an aspect we had not thought about.  We spent many weeks pushed ourselves out of our “comfort zone” to explore new and more challenging hiking areas around Asheville. I wanted to make sure I was in shape and could handle the daily walking. The further we went on daily hikes and the steeper we climbed, the better we felt and the more we liked it. Our map reading skills could have been sharper as we started with only a vague understanding of distances given in meters and kilometers.  (Inntravel is a UK based travel agency.)  Now I can say we have a clear sense of how far a kilometer is and how far 50m down the road takes us.

            Inntravel sent walking instructions and descriptive notes in an official looking, 72-page, 7” x 10” black loose leaf notebook prior to leaving for Portugal.  Daily directions read like a treasure hunt.  Each day we would slip out the pages for our journey transferring them into a convenient plastic sleeve and into one of our daypacks along with picnic lunches prepared by the hotel we were just leaving. We also tucked in emergency phone numbers in case we got lost.   Notes would read:

1.     Turn L out of hotel and after 100m turn L again onto Rua da Calçada

2.     150m later, as the main cobbled road bears off to the L. take a narrow cobbled track heading downhill to the R.  At the corner of the J, you can see a barrel used for crushing grapes.

3.     Stay on the cobbled track as it becomes a narrow dirt path, overgrown in parts, and continues ahead along the level of the terrace.  Ignore all turnings off this track until you reach a building in ruins 600m later at which point the path forks.  Turn L downhill.

We learned to interpret the abbreviations but as we walked we kept each other alert to every landmark around us.  “Is that the building in ruins, do you think? “ I might ask Art.  If in doubt one of us would venture down the fork to see if it felt right before we set off in a wrong direction.  The further we went out of a village, the fewer people we saw, and the more attention we paid to making sure we were on the right path. Following landmarks and not a GPS was part of the adventure.

            The first introduction to the Douro Valley was on the train from Porto heading inland, east towards the Douro Valley. We were glued to the large picture windows sitting on the right hand side close to the river, as our notes had advised. One of the more breathtaking train rides in Europe, the train follows precisely the perimeter of the riverbank coming only a very few feet from the edge. To me it seemed a wonder of modern engineering as I tried to imagine workers straddling the steep hills to put in just one set of tracks when this line was built in 1993.  There is only one track and when the train reaches Pocinho, the end of the line, it turns around to make the journey back.  The train goes beyond where the highway stops and in order to see the most remote and beautiful parts of the Douro you must go by train.  Steep hills and rock formations rise from the riverbank reminding me of fjords in Norway or the dramatic cliffs along the ocean in the Gulf of Oman.

We were the only passengers to alight at the train stop in Vesuvio where we were met by Dolcinera (Sra. de Ribeira) and her son, Imanuel, and ferried across the river with our luggage in a small motorboat to begin our stay in the Douro Valley.  Alighting in Vesuvio in the late afternoon on a hot sunny day I was struck by the complete silence with only the faint echo of the departing train reverberating down the track.  Standing on the tiny railroad platform we gasped at the luscious landscape. All we could see was the river just below us, hills with neat terraces all around us, and a handful of whitewashed houses.  No people in sight except for our hosts.  Birds sang, the bright sun began to sink behind the hills and our immersion in the Douro Valley began.

Each day was different as we followed the arranged itinerary. We were met  at a station or crossroad in a road exactly as stated in our Inntravel notebook, warmly greeted at each hotel along the way, ushered to our room where our bags we had left in the morning had magically been transported to where we were each evening.  After a day in the countryside on our own, rarely meeting anyone else, arriving at the hotel was exciting especially after a long shower, change of clothes and a small glass of port wine.  Dinner became evening entertainment as these country hotels served all guests around one big dining room table.  It felt like going to a dinner party every night with guests we had not met before. A three-course gourmet dinner starting at 8 p.m. accompanied lively conversation with travelers of all nationalities that were our tablemates – Germans, Swiss, British, Australians and very occasionally other Americans.

 Each day we discovered a more charming guesthouse or hotel than the last.  Casa de Casal de Loivos, we were told was built in 1658 by the Sampaio family, sits high above the Douro River with spectacular views, and is now an elegant hotel with a small number of exclusive rooms. Casa de Vilarinho de São Romão, a renovated Manor House with six guest rooms, extensive grounds of vineyards with a swimming pool, is owned and operated by Cristina Van Zeller who comes from a well known Portuguese family of wine growers.  Cristina told us that her property was the first place potatoes were planted in all of Portugal after they were brought by explorers to the “New World”.  Next to the manor house is a Chapel built in 1462.  We won’t forget picking juicy red cherries and eating them from the enormous cherry trees down by the swimming pool. 

Casa de Visconde de Chanceleiros is a spectacular nobleman’s house run by Ursula who is originally German and can converse in at least five languages.  Here we found a large swimming pool surrounded by every imaginable flowering tree and bush, a squash court and even a hot tub. Our dinner was served on a glassed in terrace high above the valley with 180-degree views.  This was our last stop where we luxuriated for two nights.   Chanceleiros is a mere 4 km walk, all downhill, to the large town of Pinhero, along a windy steep road minus guard rails. It looked way to scary to drive.

Since coming home we’ve been asked often if we managed all the daily hikes perfectly.  We could say yes and leave it at that.  But we didn’t.  The morning we set out from Casa São Romão, the old manor house, Day 5, we had a 14 km walk ahead of us.  It dawned unusually hot and sunny true to the forecast and heat wave that was engulfing Spain and Portugal that week.  We walked easily through Villarinho de São Romão. Just outside the village we took a wrong turn, walked back, reread directions several times and were stumped.  I spotted a few laborers on one of the terraces nearby working in the vineyards. Pulling out my best Portuguese which came out more in Spanish I asked directions. These men pointed one way and a woman nearby told us to go another, as it would be “muito más facil”.  Of course we took the “más facil” way and were lost again.  It was growing hotter and predicted to be 90.  We turned around and walked back to the manor house.  Cristina was surprised to see us but we asked if she could call a taxi to take us part way to Chanceleiros. 

Within 20 minutes a friendly taxi driver showed up and we explained in a mixture of Spanish and French (he had lived in France) where we wanted to go.  As we sailed along by car on the windy roads that are the norm in this part of the world the taxi driver suddenly came out into a clearing, stopped for a few minutes and pointed up a steep hill, no trees, wide open to the hot sun and said “that is the route you will walk to Chanceleiros”.  He looked at us and said “do you really want to do that?”  “Il fait tres chaud…” and it was getting terribly hot. To me it looked more daunting than anything we had encountered till then.  It was a quick moment when we decided to abort the walk and go on to Chanceleiros and the final hotel where we relaxed around the swimming pool for the afternoon taking in the views.  We could do what we liked and yet I am still puzzling over how we missed that one path on Day 5. I would like to go back and find it!

Since coming home we have a glass of port each evening and think about the Douro Valley, a peaceful and luscious part of the world that has produced famous port wines since the 1750’s.  Cold and rainy in the winter and hot and dry in the summer creates the ideal growing environment for tiny dark grapes that make the port.  Grown on terraces for centuries and harvested in the fall, some are even stomped on by foot to maintain the traditions of a long wine making history. 

 Most important of all, we have not put away our hiking shoes! We have a new love - hiking. Along with the memories of our trip, we are enjoying more vigorous walks than ever before in preparation for our next walking trip…maybe next spring?