Coffee drinking is a serious business in Portugal. There’s no way you can come here and not have to order a coffee at some point, so here is some essential information.
These are general guidelines. No two cups of coffee will ever be identical no matter what words you use. Relax, it’s just a drink.
I’m sorry, tugas. I apologise, it’s just a sacred drink. Please go easy on me, I’m just a beginner, a humble student if you please. And please if you have some corrections, additions or some anecdotal contribution to make, be my guest.
The most popular coffee is an espresso. In Lisbon you would order um bica (oong beekuh) and in Porto um cimbalinho (oong simbalEENyo). Elsewhere um café (oong kaFEY).
There are infinite variations on how it comes, so don’t be shy about being specific about your needs. Cheia (shayuh) is a full espresso cup, tres- quartas (tresh kwartas) 3/4 full, a ristretto is called um italiano (small, strong, the first few seconds of the machine’s coffee). You could ask for it não quente (nowng kent; not hot;) and they’ll put a dash of cold water in it for you.
In this pic (below) there is um italiano (top), um bica (right) and um cortado (left). In Portugal a cortado is a standard measure from the ’small cup’ button on the machine, not to be confused with a spanish cortado (cut with milk, see below).
Staying with the small cup theme, your poison may be um pingo (oong pingoo) also called um pingado (oong pingardoo); an espresso with a drop of milk (sometimes hot milk, sometimes not). Um garoto (below, left) has more milk; about 50/50 coffee-to-milk ratio but still in a small cup. In Spain this is known as a corto or a cortado. In Australia it’s a piccolo caffe latte. Uma carioca (below, right) is the opposite of a ristretto – a full small cup minus the strongest first two seconds of an espresso.
For a long black, or a large black coffee, you would order um abatanado. This could be also called um café americano, but ordering an americano may get you an instant coffee in some places. If that’s what you want then order um nescafe. If you’d like a double espresso, order um café duplo (oong kafEY DOOploo)
Going the milky way, um galão (oong galowng) is served in a tall glass and is about 3/4 milk. Traditionally a galão is made with a second passing of coffee from the machine and is very weak. If you want something more like a caffe latte than coffee flavoured milk, order a um galão directo (deeretoo). You can also ask for a dark one escuro (eshkooroo) or a light one claro (klaroo). Ordering a galão after midday will provoke funny looks, unless you’re over 80. It’s either for breakfast or it’s a nanna’s drink. You might save face by ordering uma meia de leite (maya de late) which is half milk in a regular cup, like a flat white in Australia. But like my half-Australian buddy, you could try ordering a layer de mate, mate 
Special thanks to frogdropping for her impeccable production assistance in the rain and everything.
1. you don’t have to be at the office at 9.
(To be honest I think ‘you don’t have to be at the office at all, ever’ but some people do like work. sick. freaks.)
2. you can eat out of your own garden
4. you have a hammock and you use it
5. your pancakes come out with smilies on them
6. you spend very little money and create very little garbage
7. you drink champagne on wednesdays
8. you make stuff, with your hands, just for fun, just ‘cos you can
9. the chickens roam free on the streets (wookie suggested this one)
10. there are no queues, no traffic jams, and no parking tickets
So, what are your signs? 
If you’ve ever wondered what the difference is between a girl builder and a boy builder I can tell you right here.
I’m now set up in my friend’s garage for a bit of paint stripping on my old windows for the annexe. As I packed at home in a hurry, I forgot a few handy little bits, including a set of small paintbrushes. Rather than snuff around through my mates’ 100 boxes of stuff I remembered the fab care-package sent by a friend earlier in the week : a serious stash of cosmetic goodies, from Le Mer samples to herbal nail treatments and whatnot. Unreal, especially right now as I’m needing that makeup brush to apply a dainty layer of toxic chemical on my DIY project of the moment…
OK, so a guy builder could have thought of it, sure, but would he get away with it? Later in the morning session I felt the need for an emery board, to get at those pesky corner bits. As it happens I was given a rather large pack of them for Christmas, from another intuitive female who I’d never met but who obviously could sense that I was the tricky-creative-random-tool/emery-board-emergency kind of person. Now, boys, don’t go stealing the lady’s stuff. Get your own.
About these windows. I’m going to do a crazy thing. I’m going to ask for your advice.
Eyes being the windows to the soul, windows are the soul of a house.
And new windows ain’t got no soul, man! I’ve acquired some 40 or so windows and doors that have been ripped out of a chateaux in France, or fell off the back of a truck or whatever. They are gorgeous. Trouble is, big, old, single pane windows do nothing to help insulate against cold. It snows in my village. Snow = double glazing. The second most important thing after insulation in designing an energy efficient house is double glazing. So. I’ve decided to make old fashioned double glazed windows, as in this:
Massive job. Stripping 34 windows and making 17 boxes to contain them. Plus the windows most likely contain lead paint, and there’s only so much lead poisoning a girl can take. Let’s put aside the cost for a minute because the alternative is also expensive: new timber double-glazed windows for my place will cost upwards of €5000 or more than €300 a unit. So far, it’s taking about a week to strip each window, so there goes the rest of the year if I’m going to do the lot myself. That’s out. So how can I simplify what needs to be done, while still using the old windows but upgrading their insulation potential from single-glazing?
Anyone got any paint stripping tips? Does anyone really vouch for a hot-air gun over sanding? Know anyone in the furniture restoration business, who can strip them for a good price, and possibly stain them? And that someone will not be dumping the waste in the nearest river.
Maybe then I just make the boxes. Is this style of box the way to go? It’s been suggested that I could stick on a single pane of glass over the top of the existing with a 5mm air gap, but I can see condensation and mould, because the air space is useless if not sealed. Does the frame need to go inside another rough frame? I’m thinking not, (in a unusual instance of self-restraint). What are your thoughts regarding expansion and movement? Treat against insects? Treat against water penetration? Oil or polyurethane stain? Sill gasket, foil, or insulation between the frame and the stone surround? Chocks and spray insulation? Any bright ideas anyone?
Or here’s a third idea from a “get-on-with-it” type builder: don’t strip the windows back to timber, just prep them for more painting. And he’s got a point because in my all-white-Scandinavian-modern style interior, the window interiors would be white, and not stained timber. It certainly would be a travesty to have stripped the windows beautifully, expensively and toxically if only then to paint one side anyway… so, I put it to you, dear reader, could we work with painted timber windows for the exteriors? I’m thinking slate grey or chocolate brown. I like the idea for it’s skipping the stripping process, but I baulk at it from an aesthetic pov (not that there’s any evidence that the windows are made from a noble timber, or that there is any thing worth “revealing” from the paint stripping process). And, as pointed out by someone else – there will always be an apparent difference of the timbers of the old windows and the new boxes, which painting would sympathise. Is there any added protection against humidity and insects with a paint finish other than a oil or stain?
typical house from the 'aldeias do xisto' in this area
Painted timber windows anyone? Or does everyone want to remind me what a economically crushing massive overproduction this idea is?
Many of you will have forgotten that I am building a house. I understand how you feel. I tried to forget it myself, but as anyone who has built a house knows, you are reminded of how much there is to do EVERY TIME YOU STEP OUT THE DOOR.
This is probably just the right moment to remind the doubters out there (not you, dear reader, I’m sure you’re all with me… oh.. I see…ok, maybe some of you are with me) that this is not a RACE and I have had a MIGRAINE for the last six months, not to mention there’s been a GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS, which has forced some of us to take it SLOWLY OR DIE FROM STARVATION. OH-KAY-EY?
I’m going to say this once, just so we are all clear. YOU CANNOT BUILD A HOUSE BY YOURSELF. That’s right, YES, I know that. And YES, I will be getting the crew in sometime soon. As soon as this headache goes away and the winter is over and I find that last 50 grand I left somewhere. So BACK OFF, or I’ll get the chainsaw out again.
Along with the billions of common frustrations that come with building a house there is the less famous annoyance called not building a house. I had my hands on some stones the other day (was covering the ruin walls to stop them from ruining some more) and felt that dotted line of joy just to be near them again. The craving just to get on with it is driving me loco.
But – there is some news – I did have the angle grinder out. Eons ago I went on a hunt for gates (actually I can look up the blog to when the great search for gates began… it was August. As I said – Eons ago). One gate was needed for the last garden stone wall to be finished and the other for the bathroom stone wall. Couldn’t build the walls without knowing the width of the gates, you see. And unlike new stuff, you can’t rely on a standard size with an antique, or an old-piece-of-crap velharia anyway.
Long story short, found gates in next village, great colour excellent price. Going to be gorgeous. Trust me.
Needed to remove the old hinges and bits before handing them over to the serralheiro to fix new ones, so out came the angle grinder. Just as I was thinking that I really don’t like metalwork much, nor do I like the blunt and rather vicious instrument that is the angle grinder, I became hypnotized. Rather than just saw off the hinges, I cleaned them up like you’d never know the hinges had existed, then I moved onto the rust and old paint. It must have been the extreme noise that ushered me into the 8th state of consciousness you can only get with power tools. It’s not entirely unlike an MRI scan at 3am in a foreign hospital with a migraine. You can really lose yourself in there.
YES earplugs, YES I WAS thankyou, doubter. Now piss off or I’ll GRIND you.
Now that the gates are sitting somewhere waiting for new hinges, I might actually be planning some wall building. Now that it’s sub-15 degrees. And raining. Oh hang on, there’s snow forecast for tonight. Brilliant. Er, I doubt it.
My sister’s friend Pete died last Friday. About two years ago, in the earlier days of his illness, Pete converted to Buddhism and became a monk, which I now realise was ingenius forward planning on his part. As a Buddhist he believed in reincarnation. In the face of death, or even life, reincarnation is a superb concept. It’s comforting, for you and your people to see dying as a metamorphosis… an evolution… or even just a change of outfit!
You have to hand it to the Buddhists. Not only for reincarnation, but they also believe in peace (as opposed to violence), a concept that Christians, Muslims and Jews seem to have dispensed with altogether these days.
My sister urged Pete to come back as a Burmese cat. What a life! Of course in Buddhist philosophy you don’t get a choice, but seeing as it’s not a request to come back rich, powerful or beautiful, or even as a person, then I don’t see there’s any harm in an appeal to the people at front desk to come back as a cat.
The Burmese cat’s lifestyle is far better than an human one. Basically it’s a bit like being a rich and spoilt retired supermodel. You sloth about, with slaves at your beck and call, and everyone thinks you’re gorgeous.
If you’re thinking this might be a bit dull, think again. If you’re the adventurous type you can make the rounds of your territory outside, with all the security of a premium guided tour but no compromise of jungle safari danger and daring. For a cat, the world is extremely big, so there’s no pressure to climb Everest or go wingsuit flying to get your adrenaline fix. A trip out to the car park is thrilling enough. You might even meet a dog out there.
But to the Burmese, the outdoors is a bit common, really. There are superior pleasures to be found inside the home. If you’re bored by deep sleep in front of fireplaces, you can find any number of cosy hiding spots that change daily like a blackboard menu. There also might be warm bodied people to sit on, or even a light or a computer left on, ready to be exploited.
Sports? Burmese are famous for fetching; you throw, they bring back. They also have a pronounced imagination and revel in private fantasy games: sometimes humans might be invited to join in a game of chasings, invisible mouse hunts, or a battle against unseen monsters.
Burmese also have a rich intellectual life. They like reading and they especially enjoy surfing the net, especially on a Mac. You think I’m being silly now. It’s a fact.
I don’t want you to think it’s a life without some responsibilities. But they’ll only take on a task if there’s something in it for them. My Mao has a taste for bugs, so when we lived in the city I put him in charge of pest control. He would willingly eat 5 large cockroaches before I left for work each morning. Now we’re in the country, he keeps the mouse population subjugated, but he’s excelling himself as heating policeman. If the ambient temperature in the lounge room drops below acceptable comfort levels, he’ll come to the kitchen and say “Mao!” thus alerting me it’s time for another log. It’s a system. It works.
Speaking of communication skills, the Burmese can be very persuasive indeed. Like Siamese, they have a tendency to be verbal, whether it be just enjoying a chat or expressing their concerns with your relationship. The good thing is, if there’s a problem, they won’t bottle it up. Take for instance a friend of ours called Moet, who is not at all a whinger or a noisy pest, but in fact an excellent communicator. When, at 1am she had an issue that needed addressing, she let her mother know by saying “Ma”. Ma opened the window, and Moet went out. But the issue wasn’t resolved, so she came back inside, and said “Maa”. Her mother got up, went downstairs and gave her some food. “Maaa”. Her mother gave her some of the other food. “Maaaa”. But her mother hadn’t been listening properly so Moet said “Maaaa!” and then, finally, at 1:30am, her mother had the idea of changing the kitty litter. Before the final pellet had left the bag, Moet’s needs were met.
It’s being sociable that the Burmese likes most. They love company. If you’re around they will be with you. They like to share the love. And that’s not a bad principle for life.
So if you happen to be adopting a Burmese today, I already have the right name for you. Lozang Dhondrup.
For Pete, safe travels, brave monk.
This furniture is an inspiration. I spotted it in the Portuguese design magazine Attitude, impressively included in an Orgulho/National Pride editorial, a couple of years ago. I kept it in the back of my mind to go and see them whenever I got to the Alentejo.
When I finally made the trip visiting the Agua de Prata workshop it was the highlight of my visit to Evora. Roman era temple? For what we came. Pre-history Cromeleques? Saw them. But Nossa Senhora Da Graça Do Divor… Conquer me!
The studio is situated on an enviably pretty hill, next to a notable church on a gently undulating Alentejan plain, dotted with the ancient water wells that supplied Roman Evora its silver water, agua de prata.
The wool producing town of Arraiolos is about 15kms away, and supplies the artist, João Videira, with the wool with which he reinvents and revives old furniture frames and other objects. There’s a magic fusion that happens between the old framework and the intensely coloured wool that creates an altogether new and beautiful design piece. The warmth of the recollected meets the tactile wool in a way that makes this furniture irresistible; it’s at once modern and antique, designer and personal, precious and cuddly.
And the recycled and recreated philosophy fits perfectly with the concept for my house. By taking what has heritage and soul and stripping back the parts that have deteriorated. Then restructuring and repairing those bones for a modern use, adapting outdated living concepts for today’s needs and integrating modern desires for comfort and pleasure. The result is honestly beautiful, luxurious and unique furniture of character and simplicity.
My favourite things are, naturally, the Pedras de Lã, Wool Rocks. At first glance their organic shape made me curious about the support around which the wool is carefully wrapped. Their weight gives nothing away, except that inside they couldn’t be hollow. Nor are the stones hard; they have a sponginess that adds to the organic characteristic of their shape. The answer is, that the Pedras are solid wool, a ball so carefully and tightly bound that it has taken on its own natural form, and like all the Agua de Prata works, is individual and unique.
And if you’re passing the town through at lunchtime, as we were, wondering where all the folk could be, tuck your head into the first café on the left, which will be packed and dishing out delicious local plates with atmosphere and conviviality. Happiness all round.
http://aguadeprata.blogspot.com/
Injuries: 0. Houses Built: 0
I’m a subscriber to John Irving’s idea that if you’ve had a crap day, cooking dinner is your last opportunity to accomplish something worthwhile, and redeem yourself.
For an overacheiver, it’s inevitable that most days are a disappointment, unless you’ve managed to get Warren Buffet on the phone discussing your plan for relieving world poverty. Even when I’ve suceeded in laying a few stones in a new wall, I usually arrive at dinnertime with more than a just a hunger in my stomach. I have a hunger of the soul as well.
I thought I’d be wacking up a couple of thick stone walls this week, but I need to find two old gorgeous gates before I start them. I’ve been searching for months for the gates and now it’s really holding me up. The delay has given me the time to have three days of migraines, and a whole lot more to complain about. So instead of writing about how the building is going, I’m writing, again, about cooking, and complaining. There it is.
Anyway… dinner. Half the battle for some people is in deciding what to make. It’s not just that you want the result to be delicious and satisfying. Dinner should also should pay lip service (at least) to healthiness AND be new and thrilling, either because you have an audience to please, or just because when things are new, life brightens up a bit.
I’m writing about it because I have just made another great dinner that met the three essential criteria; Yummy, Healthy and New. And I’ve had a mild revelation.
It was basically a pile of blanched green beans with a bunch of small tomatoes, a small tin of emblemic portuguese tuna, olives, a poached egg and a mean lemony herby mayonnaise. The recipe is not the revelation – it’s about where the meal originated from.
Most of it came from my garden. The beans, tomatoes, the herbs, and the olives were mine, the lemon & egg was from my neighbour and the tuna was from… a tin.
Home grown. Food that has come from your own garden almost automatically satifies all the soul food requirements. You’re relieved of the decision of what to make, because you have to make whatever is ready to eat.
Food from you own garden is different from the boring paid for-kind. Garden direct vegies have the power to convert you to food you always hated. Cabbage for example. I never voluntarily ate cabbage until picking it myself. After all, if you’ve gone to the trouble of watering it for months, you do feel obliged to try it at least once. Trying = New. And now I’m addicted.
And fresher is certainly yummier, and healthier. But there’s something of an added cosmic extra about a great meal made with your own gear. It’s an accomplishment of the human animal’s positive interaction with nature. It’s redeeming. It’s soulful.
Growing your own is of course an essential component in the “dump your job and get a life” program. Simplify. Skip the supermarket bullshit. Skip the packaging and the petrol and the spending. Just like a vista of olive trees and the sound of silence, home grown food makes us happier humans.
But because I’m just a city girl in recovery, I want to ride the high higher. I’m going out for dessert. Yay for that other non-farma antidepressant. Cake.
All my love to Anthony. We learn as we go.
‘For the love of wild blackberries’ does not have the same ring to it, does it? I’m not even sure that they are blackberries, as the dictionary calls them mulberries but they are nothing like the mulberry tree that I used used to climb and pick the fruit of when I was a kid in Sydney.
So please advise, horticulturists, what are these called in English?
This is the time of year in my village when this plant, all year round a painful and invasive nuisance, finally pays back. It’s luscious and intense fruit makes fantastic jam, and I love jam. The amoras season also marks the start of several months of picking, being followed by the grapes, then the olives, oranges and then finally in November it will rain figs. When the figs stop, the rain will start, and it wont stop raining until may.
I really like making jam, but I only recently discovered that other people like my jam too. It makes me especially happy when my jars of stuff are enjoyed by portuguese friends. Normally my giveaways are just too weird for them, but jam seems to fit in with a normal portuguese jam-freshcheese-biscuits afternoon snack or dessert. And I’m only too happy to find a new way to eat jam.
Amoras Jam
For 1 jar of jam, I use approximately;
1 jar fruit
1/2 jar white sugar
juice of half lemon
1/3 jar rosé wine
I like my jams a bit runny, full of chunky fruit and not too sweet. The wine gives the jam a bit more complexity and depth.
I boil it up ferociously until a mass of bubbles have collected high above the surface of the fruit – it looks like boiling toffee. It usually takes about half an hour and I could let it go for an hour, but no more. I don’t bother to skim or even test for setting, but I do wash and boil the jars, dry them, fill them warm and then boil them again.
Apart from having jam on toast (especially good on portuguese breads), I also eat it with plain yoghurt for dessert, pile it on ice cream and serve it with fresh cheese, portuguese style. It would also be unforgettable with pannacotta (similar to leite creme in portugal) or on a cheesecake. Or a pavlova! Oh meu amor!
When I was 19 I shared a house with three crazy girls. The house was filled with eclectic stuff collected from op-shops, a wild collage of housewares that had accumulated from years of rental since paleolithic times.
The only things I’ve kept from those days are some dear friendships. I know of only one object that endures from the same period: a large porcelain crab, The Crab, as it’s known to us. Its purpose is mostly decorative but when called upon could used to serve dip from its shell-lidded body while its legs make spaces for crackers, celery sticks and the like.
Some people might mistake The Crab for a piece of 50’s-60’s-70’s kitsch, but it’s my belief, that The Crab has Provenance. I don’t mean it’ s an antique, but it has a story and heritage that elevates it from being just a quirky piece of china.
It all began in Portugal.
Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro was born in Lisbon in 1846 into an artistic middle class family. He rapidly became an accomplished caricaturist and made his name first in Brazil then in Portugal as a satirist, writing and drawing for the major publications of the time.
Rafael became quite famous for being a pain-in-the-arse. He was against conservatism, conformity and corruption. He had a wicked sense of humour in creating a little man called Zé Povinho, a peasant and everyman whose most famous pose means “Up Yours!”. Through him, Rafael took sides with the powerless and the poor, in all their apathy, ignorance and discontent.
After about 20 years of stirring up trouble, Rafael abruptly pulled up stumps in Lisbon and relocated to Caldas da Rainha.
Rafael and his much less famous brother opened a ceramics factory dedicated to both utilitarian homewares and artistic endeavour. Rafael continued to apply his sarcastic and political wit in his work as a ceramic artist and sculptor. The high quality of their products became world renowned and as well as directing an arts school Rafael produced large scale commissions, imitating all kinds of fashionable art styles from Art Nouveau, to revivalist Manueline and Palissy (a 16th century French ceramicist who made plates piled with dead things). With clay, he lampooned well known society figures and expanded his family of characters, including Ze Povinho, into 3D. His work was prolific and extremely varied.
Somewhere along the line came the cabbages. As a part of the kitchenware range he designed a range of tureens, bowls and plates styled on cabbages. In Portugal, the cabbage is a symbol of rural life, of peasant life. You don’t normally see it on restaurant menus but cabbage is grown in every kitchen garden north to south. Caldo Verde, a cabbage soup, is a national dish. So you might say Rafael’s cabbages were yet another ambiguous smirk at society. Perhaps he fancied the irony of a bourgeois Parisian housewife with a plebeian cabbage as her table centrepiece. From the cabbages came all kinds of other horticulture, plates of fish for fish, and hence, crabs, I suspect, for crab dip.
It took only 10 years after Rafael’s death (in 1905) for a museum to be created to celebrate his work. Today there are two museums under his name and various others housing private collections. The factory, Faianças Bordallo Pinheiro, was recently saved from bankruptcy and continues to make beautiful ceramics both very stylish and very funny.
If there is further proof of his talent, endurance and timeless fashionability, Rafael imitations can still be found for sale on the other side of the world. Here’s what my sister found in a Sydney furniture shop on the weekend…
Breaking news in Portugal… de de de dedede… Guess what? Gripe A isn’t fatal! You wouldn’t know it from watching Portuguses news. My Aussie Visitors brought me the real news from the Antipodes, where tens of thousands are infected because someone forgot the check the cruise ships. Oops. But nobody cares. They’ve stopped counting. They’ve stopped reporting. Because they’ve discovered it’s not the virus that’s killing people neccessarily, it’s old age, cancer, AIDS, pneumonia, asthma, diabetes and whatever other nasty things people have before they catch the pig-bug. The virus itself is a bit piss-weak actually when you compare it to other viral epidemics. Not as contagious as spanish flu, not as powerful as bird flu. So there you are, Portugal. Panic over.
Visitors. Can’t stop them coming, can’t eat them. Filth-making, freeloading, floppers. Still, they do bring quality teas. And chocolate. And they teach the dog tricks. That’s good. And they build compost heaps. They make cups of tea. That’s good too. Oh, alright then. Visitors are ok. But they make you FAT. All those bolos de berlim I had to have! All those pasteis de nata!
Anyway, now that they’ve gone back to where they came from, I’m back to work on the house. OMG. It’s been months now, enough time for the trenches I’ve dug to have filled in again and grown weeds. Let’s see how my vertigo likes hard sweaty work…
