Recipe for Pickled Gherkins/Cucumbers

Rob this one is for you.
Really easy recipe and one that you can enjoy within 3 days.


YOU WILL NEED:

2 cups white vinegar
3 cups water
4 Tbl sugar
8 cloves garlic
6 Bay leaves
2 tsp black peppercorns
1 Tbl salt
I like to add some dill if I have it.

- Sterilise some jars
- pack jars with cucumbers whole or cut into pieces - I only had normal cucumbers so cut    them into lengths and some small pieces.
_ combine ingredients in a pan and bring to the boil, then pour over cucumbers/gherkins       making sure they are covered.
- seal, refrigerate and ready to eat in 3 days.


ENJOY:)

Viarco Pencils in Portugal - brands with history

A brand that is manufactured in Portugal and that we saw in many shops in Lisbon is Viarco.  Their website http://www.viarco.pt is excellent and the range of products that they do are all on the website, There is an aquarelle pencil, A huge stick of graphite for huge drawings as well as coloured pencils and many others. An interesting video about the company is available here to watch, the commentary is in Korean, I think but there is a lot of Portuguese as well. IT IS EXTREMELY INTERESTING as the gentleman in the video says, the factory is not a static museum it is a working museum.

A tourist in the video says it is not very modern. I think that he is wrong  - it is great that it is not modern and that people have an opportunity to see how things are made on a small scale using old machines and that the people that have worked there for many years have an opportunity to still work and create a unique product for the market.

The machinery may be antique but the marketing , website, and product development are current.



Marcas com história por viarcoportugal

Full circle

An amazing thing happened here last week .

Friends of ours arrived at a braai (barbecue) with a sailor friend of theirs , and to our suprise it was the man we sold our boat to.

8 years ago

 Eight years later and with many miles under her keel she stopped in at Horta and we got to see her again.

A little travel weary, but under that, still the solid little boat we once owned.

I am happy that she is out there doing what she was made for, and as is the tradition here left a mark on the harbour wall.

A Vida Portuguesa, Samsung galaxy tab vs Apple iPad

On our recent visit to Lisbon we spent an amazing 5 days enjoying the city and what it has to offer. One of the highlights for me was a visit to a store that stocks all sorts of interesting Portuguese products.

As we have previously posted, we use a number of Portuguese manufactured products for example Couto toothpaste, 444 para depois de barbear, soaps etc. as we feel that if we don't support local manufacturing and companies they will eventually die out or be swallowed up by huge multinationals.

I suggest you visit http://www.avidaportuguesa.com and have a look at what they offer.

While we were looking around I found a product that I used when I was  young,
a Quadro Ardosia which is a wooden framed slate that you can draw on either with a slate pen or with chalk.
I said to T it looks like a prehistoric iPad, amazing!!

Well later that day we went to a large store called  http://www.elcorteingles.pt where I got to try the new Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet. WOW!!!

https://www.samsung.com/pt/consumer/mobile-phone/note/note/GT-N5110ZWATPH
What we miss on the island is a place where you get to see and touch all the latest NEW stuff (on the other hand then we would not have a trip to the mainland to look forward to). It was great and I want one.

Then today reading news on the web I found an article from May 2013   http://www.sammobile.com/2013/05/31/galaxy-tab-10-1-doesnt-infringe-ipad-design-rules-says-supreme-court-in-the-netherlands/

basically it says

"Apple has tried to ban the Tab 10.1 in the Netherlands because they said it infringed their design patents. They said it was a rectangular shape with rounded corners.
The Supreme Court said in the verdict: Apple’s design right is valid, but the protection it offers is very limited due to earlier similar designs, also known as prior art.

Because the shape and form are in many more products manufactured by many other companies this limits Apple’s design right.

“Apple was not the first to design a tablet with a rectangular shape and rounded corners,” “No company should have a monopoly on general designs,” Samsung stated."


Come on!! Apple -  the quadro ardosia looks like a iPad/Tablet even works like a tablet, you write on it, you take notes on it.
Instead of spending money suing, reduce the price of your products, do something good for the world, be NICE!!
Let innovation flourish, and creativity triumph.

So Samsung, visit http://www.avidaportuguesa.com and buy a quadro ardosia to take with you to court as evidence -
you can even take down notes with it while you are there.

 

OR the next time you get sued by apple for infringing the look of an Ipad -
 just send them a link to my website, and with the costs you save,
you can give me a Galaxy note 8.0.
BTW Samsung its my birthday in a few days (subtle Hint) you can contact me via my blog

Faial update

 There is no excuse for the lack of updates but sure laziness. Often friends are asking for updates and we  forget that our daily activity which becomes our norm and perhaps uneventful to us, is still interesting to the flip side of this life.
Sandrine shared some corn seed she had ordered on line. I planted the seed and with in a day or two the birds had filtered the earth and enjoyed these jewels. I was fortunate to save a few and these were the results. They were too beautiful to eat, so I will save the seed for next year and try again.

Sitting outside a coffee shop I noticed the crossword on a public wall. While enjoy the warm sun, my mind found a few Portuguese words in this block of letters which I think is some cryptic clue.







What you are seeing is the dump, where household rubbish and garden and building material are disposed of. When we first arrived, we made regular visits for treasures, we found many useful items, either sculptures for the garden or furniture to be restored. Now look at it, flat, nothing. I did not explain too well that the household and garden have two separate sections, this is the building section and there is nothing. Everyday they must bulldoze it flat but the big question where are they pushing it to? The mountain behind is Praia do Norte.

I was just too slow with the camera but this was a gorgeous site. A farmer was coming round the corner and this lady he knew was coming out the shop with her shopping and he offered her a lift - in the back of the tractor.






A rogue fennel plant emerged in our garden, so I let it be, it did well and produced many heads. We picked and then by rubbing the florets the seeds fall out. This is time consuming but we must of harvested close on 1kg. I use it for a digestive tea mix, add it to our homemade muesli and the Portuguese make a great flat biscuit with cornmeal flour, butter, sugar and fennel seed and cook it slowly, in the forno which has cooled down after baking bread. I love these biscuits. I can not remember their name right now. Cheese is a great accompaniment too.

After a storm it is always interesting to visit the beach, to see its transformation and the treasures mother nature has washed up. Most of it is a sorry site, dead birds, a lot of plastic, many shoes and fair amount of driftwood. But on this occasion there was Sargasso seaweed and that was like finding gold that our garden would value. We gathered what bags we had a filled them up. It was not light work and the car was not close by. They recently put up beacons to stop cars coming down onto the beach. It was still worth the hard work.







Good way to sell more chillies - DO YOU KNOW PEPPERS ARE AN APHRODISIAC















The most  rewarding tree in our garden. We have planted, plum, orange, lemon, apples, fig and this tree a Tamarillo. I love it. Fruiting happens from November - December and they almost look like Christmas lights. So after a years growth we have fruit. We have since planted two more.











You might remember my birthday gift of various seeds, these were the carrots. Sweet and Delicious. Best advice if you are going to cook them and want to enjoy the two tone colouring, boil them whole, otherwise you loose the colour. Another definite for next year.

This sheep was constructed from old bits of polystyrene and there were other up cycled animals around the store and closer to Christmas they came together for the nativity scene at the entrance of the store.

On the 8th of December the shops were open in the evening, making special Christmas displays. The evening was perfect and there were many families out enjoying the crisp night. Different organisations and fregusias put their craft work out to display and raise money for different causes. The items to the right come from our village.

Attention Faial Property For Sale

If you are viewing our blog, please take a look at the headers and click on Faial Property For Sale.
We have friends wishing to sell their properties. We would be happy to help those who have a serious interest in buying property on Faial.

Tobacco Leaves Ready To Roll

Our tobacco leaves have been drying and are at the leathery stage and have now lost their stickiness.
This is how we did it and if you grow and harvest your own tobacco all comments and suggestions would be helpful. Firstly we cut the vein out the center then rolled a leaf really tightly then kept on adding more leaves until we had a tightly rolled cigar and glued the last leaf with a little honey. Last year we had read to roll this tightly then put it in a bag and allow it to ferment but a local guy said his father use to roll it tightly with honey. Well it turned out better to use as chewing tobacco rather than smoking tobacco. This year we have got as far as just rolling it tightly, without so much honey, so this is where we would appreciate any input.

Easy Peanut Brittle

Recently we bought some peanut brittle from Modelo but it was called Nougat - a bit confusing but thank goodness for the clear wrapper. Oh what a dissapointment, the nuts were burnt and the after taste on your tongue was really unpleasant. So how difficult can it be to make peanut brittle? Off to good ol Youtube and like I like to say, keep it simple. More simple this recipe couldn´t be. You will notice everyones comments - where is the bicarb? what about how much sugar etc and I notice there were no replies - WHY because we always want to make things more difficult than they really are. Just take an amount of sugar, and once it has got to the caramel stage add as much or as little peanuts as you like.

It is blowing a hooley outside and we are catching up on blogging and enjoying great
 peanut  brittle. We used almonds, be creative:)

Man - it is windy

Not much to blog about, But there is a reason it has been windy and raining for 2 days - have a look at
http://www.weather.com/weather/hurricanecentral/tracker

We have tied down the beehive, staked down the chicken coop that blows away closed the shutter on Judys house and we are about to get into a warm dry bed and see what tomorrow brings - sorry there are no pictures just these from the hurricane site

Tobacco, Tomatoes and bees

Well, Tanya gets back today from a trip, so I thought i would give you an update on what is happening in the garden - my tobacco plants are almost ready for harvest so I have taken off some of the leaves to hang - if you have a look in the pics there is a pack of rolling paper to give you the idea of the size of the leaves.

this is a close-up of the next picture to show the height of the plant - this is a different tobacco - either Habanero or Cuban - not sure

and to think they come from such tiny seeds

and here are the bees with a super on the Hive and some tomatoes - we are getting lots

and the tobacco leaves hung up to dry along with our onions that T plaited and our garlic

Maria Margarita playing the Hang

Last nights privilege was to absorb the beautiful sounds of the Hang from Maria Margarita.
This unique instrument was born in Switzerland in 2000 and Maria has been playing for 7 years now.

I chose this link as Maria and the Hang have travelled the world together and these are some fabulous pictures to accompany her harmonious sound.

Maria tells me she uses this instrument in a type of sound massage, so look forward to a trip over to Pico to enjoy this very relaxing meditative vibrational tones.
Thank you Maria you are truly talented.

Bee Informed

My darling bees arrived from Pico almost a week ago. I had been expecting them Tuesday last week but then heard they had not got their passport so it would be later in the week. When they arrived it was about 3 in the afternoon and very hot. I anticipated the guy who delivered them, would advise me that my location was correct and that he would help me move them from the nucleus to the new home. This was not to bee(excuse the pun)
I at least got him to suit up and open the box, as it  was wired up and had sponge in the front entrance. When he opened it many dead bees were carried out by the living ones. I felt sad that they had a hot long journey all closed up, with no air. Later that night I thought I had no bees left, and went out to see if there was any action. All I could  see was a pile of dead bees on the floor, being so absorbed by their loss I was forgetting it is night time and there might not be any around. First thing the next morning out to inspect -  there was activity. I thought great I would suit up and get them moved across. I got the smoker going but maybe not sufficiently but it was puffing. I readied my hive and then open the box, ah there were bees, I was delighted. I noticed the frames had plastic ends to them. I battled to lift out the first one but when it came up, all hell let rip, the noise was not pleasant like I had experienced at other peoples hives, so I thought lets move quickly get them in, only the frame did not fit in my hive, I was so pissed off and to top it all the face visor must have fallen against my face and I got stung. Quickly put the frame back in the old box, closed up and went straight away to take some homeopathic remedy apis and put some ice on the sting. I phoned a friend to come help but then it started raining, Friday 13 it just was not meant to bee.

Saturday she very kindly came round, we got the smoker working a lot more efficiently and went to do the job. I mentioned the frame not fitting so she started at the other end, all went well, except for the one I tried, so  I had done nothing incorrectly, only plastic not properly pushed on, with a Little bit of cutting we got it to fit.
 Eggs were present, some food but we did not see the queen. Petra did agree  they were still a bit aggressive. Her advise was to check them in 3 days time, which should have been yesterday but I thought, let them bee for a little bit, I see activity there, so let us pray all is going the way it should do inside there.

So my advise would bee, if you are a newbie, get an experienced person to assist you.
 There were many contributing factors to that day - stressed bees, being pissed that the guy dumped the bees and left and most probably emotionally feeling unsure, due to Nathan being in SA for his brothers funeral, so no right hand man.
I see more bees in the garden so happy to know they like their new home and I think there will be huge transformation in the garden after a few months of their presence.

Bee Update

Well the bee hive is almost complete - we are just awaiting some pieces which the Associação Apicultura, did not have in stock when we were there. Things like the bee suit, gloves and the metal entrance to the hive - Quite important, I think. We saw the person who organized the bees for us and apparently they are coming next week, so this gives us a little extra time. Here is a picture of the hive so far.

Here is a link to an article about the association
http://jornalincentivo.com/artigo_ver.php?id_artigo=581

Building updates in the workshop

Gee I have left you in the dark, no updates as to what is going down here on Faial.
Guess we are groaning like other countries around the world, about the weather and the lack of a good start to the summer.



The workshop is the place to be, it is all happening there. Nath has turned out some lovely stuff. He has made a corner shelf unit, a post box, an outside table and bench set, a gate to retain a gorgeous dog from going walk about and finally I get to have a bee hive not just one, two. So bees I have two new homes - and looking for tenants with friendly nature, good house keeping and prompt payment (liquid gold) please.

Espirito Santo

  I am a bit late on all the news and events that have been taking place. Over the past week we have had the celebration of Espirito Santo, many sopas have been held and fireworks going off. On the weekend of the 27 May we were invited to a sopas in the same venue as the last one I blogged about. Then on the Monday it was a holiday on Faial and from what I gather only Faial, Pico and Sao Jorge celebrate this holiday. There was a parade in Cedros, with the philharmonic playing, cakes, goats and pigs being raffled off and plenty to eat and drink. With all the rain we had been having, many prayers must have been said for this perfect day.

Citrus Gems

These gorgeous limes were planted in Australia for my birthday, thank you Robyn, I look forward to some pictures and how they are coming along. I hope my new Birthday tradition is catching on.  When you next have to buy someone a gift, please consider planting a tree.

These limes are native to Australia and are extremely vivid and flavoursome. Known and enjoyed for centuries by indigenous Australians, native limes are now hugely popular with the domestic gardener through to the professional chef. They are also tolerant of a wide range of conditions. (Some of the blurb on the back of the card)

Incessant rain and trança da casca do milho

Two days non stop rain - the ground is saturated, the rivers are almost overflowing and leaks are appearing that never leaked before, due to the direction and force of the rain (almost horizontal at times).

Never the less we are thankful for the rain for the farmers who needed the rain, but all the animals are looking like they have had enough now. It has been said too much rain in May can have an effect on the quality and quantity of the grape harvest.

Wow, we have read, surfed the net, baked, eaten way too much, had lots of good snuggles with the cats, braided all the husks that were collected with Maria but right now we would appreciate the suns return.

Nath has taken a video of me braiding the corn husks, the lighting is not the best but listen closely and you can hear the rain in the background.

Diatomaceous Earth

Seemed like only yesterday we were plagued by caterpillars eating our sweet potato leaves. The thought of the caterpillars has risen again as it is time to plant sweet potatoes.
 Our garden is chemical FREE and we plan to keep it that way. During our investigation looking for alternative ways to reduce this caterpillar we came across Diatomaceous Earth and what an incredible product it is.
 It was effect with the caterpillars and equally with reducing the ants and fleas which are now appearing with the spring rain.
So who would have thought this product was suitable for man to ingest. Yup it surely is with amazing benefits.
http://www.morethanalive.com/Diatomaceous-Earth-Food-Grade-Powder .
Be sure to add it to your pets food and sprinkle on their coat against fleas.

We are now adding it to our diet and boy are my nails growing at a rapid rate.