Friends visiting Madrid...
On 21NOV, our first guests arrived for a visit, Karen and her son Harry. Karen and I have known each other since freshman year at Penn and we are family at this point. When I was in Brooklyn she lived all the way up on 68th Street and Amsterdam. We rarely saw each other! The upper west side is so far away from Brooklyn. Now that I am in Madrid hopefully we can spend more time together.
I picked them up in a Respiro car from Madrid airport. First time driving out there to pick someone up. So easy! Everything in Madrid is so easy. But perhaps everything in NYC is so complicated. I would never schlep out to JFK to pick up someone, but here it is a breeze.
Thursday was Thanksgiving and I had a lot of preparation to do. Getting all the ingredients was like a scavenger hunt. I had brought canned pumpkin and graham crackers from California, but I needed pecans and cranberries and sour cream. After a lot of hunting I found the first two but the sour cream was a big challenge. It isn't sold anywhere. I went to a Mexican restaurant in the neighborhood and asked them how they do it. The woman there told me that she mixes heavy cream with lemon juice and starts beating it and voilá! Sour Cream. I also did a bit of searching online and found this video which made it seem so easy! Of course when I started to make it it was just heavy cream and lemon juice. I whipped it up and then it became lemony whipped cream. Epic fail. I just put in some yoghurt until the consistency was right. I needed the sour cream for the bourbon pumpkin cheesecake. The recipe is crazy delicious. I make it every year. In fact my Thanksgiving meal is about the same every year, but it is damn good.
Everything else was in place for Thanksgiving. I had ordered a turkey from the butcher next door, and he broke it down so that I didn't have to struggle. I always use Julia's deconstructed recipe, and it is easy and delicious. I always watch these videos before cooking, to get me in the mood. Julia & Jacques are great, and they make everything seem to easy!
After getting the cheesecake baked, Karen Harry and myself took a stroll around town. Karen had a bucket list of things she wanted to see and it seemed that on the drive from the airport we got half of them out of the way, passing Puerto de Alcalá and Gran Via and all sorts of highlights. We walked to Plaza Mayor, and Ópera, and had lunch at La Paella Real where we consumed a lot of food and a lot of wine, and even Harry was given a digestif after dinner, one that tasted like concentrated apple juice. I'm still getting used to having a big lunch and a light dinner. We were all stuffed.
Wednesdays are a bit crazy so after walking around a bit and giving Karen and Harry the lay of the land we hopped into Respiro and headed out to Alcobendas to pick up Markus. From there we went to Carrefour to kill time before Andreas's tennis ended. Carrefour is our go-to place for killing time on Mondays and Wednesdays. The place is massive and has everything. I needed a mixer for Thanksgiving baking and found this weird contraption from Kenwood (don't they make speakers?) that is a mixer and a blender and a food processor! It wasn't as solid as my KitchenAid of course, but I don't need to spend €500 on something I am not going to use that often. We also always make a point to stop by the olive area where a woman there is happy to give out free samples. I bought a lot of olives. They are delicious.
Thursday was the big day so after the kids left for school (which was great, an American school where the kids have to go to school on Thanksgiving is a blessing for the parents), Karen and Harry went exploring and I started getting the stuffing and turkey going. The oven is miniscule compared to the beast I had in Brooklyn but the turkey did fit!
It was a lot of work putting Thanksgiving together, but it is a great holiday and I was thrilled with the result. There were 12 of us for dinner: the boys & me, Karen & Harry, Claire & Harry, Murat, Ana & Mateo, and Lola & Carlos. Turkey turned out perfectly, the wine flowed, and we chatted and ate until midnight. So much fun. I miss entertaining and having people over, have to do that more.
Friday was a school holiday and since Karen was in town it was our opportunity to do something touristy. We took the boys to the Prado and had a dedicated tour. The tour wasn't cheap by any stretch but I didn't want to just wander around aimlessly. I had never been to the Prado and didn't know much of anything. The art was beautiful and it was great having a background from an expert, learning about this crazy king or that artist who hides himself in the portaits (I'm looking at you Velazquez!). I would definitely do a private tour again. The boys were getting fidgety and bored but I didn't care, they need to be exposed to this.
Post museum we took taxis to Chocolateria San Gines for churros and chocolate, which was also on Karen's bucket list. There was a line and the place was packed with tourists, but we had a good time, especially watching the waiters descend the stairs with trays full of hot chocolate stacked on top of each other.
Saturday the five of us headed to Toledo for a day trip. Because I think everything will work in a timely manner we got to the train station with just minutes to spare and then we all had trouble with our credit cards, so we missed the train we wanted to take. I remember being in Zurich airport buy train tickets to get to Interlakken and the lady at the ticket window said we had plenty of time to get to our train which was leaving in just 4 minutes. I have to build in more time in case things go wrong. This isn't Zurich.
We had time to kill before the next train so we went to El Brillante, a tapas bar near the station which had calamare sandwiches, another item on Karen's bucket list. We were able to sit outside and it was a really nice day. We took the train to Toledo, maybe an hour away, and spent the day walking around. Somehow I don't have a single picture from this day, but Toledo is a big walled city and we spent a chunk of the day on an audio tour of the giant Cathedral in Toledo.
Sunday Karen & Harry were leaving so we had a nice dinner at Bocaito which is quickly becoming my favorite restaurant. Great food, great drinks, great ambiance.
It was so great to have Karen & Harry visit. Can't wait to see them again.
The month rounded out with 2 birthdays, but long gone are the days of baking birthday cakes, arranging parties, and heading to the ice skating rink at Bryant Park. Andreas turned 17 (17!) on the 28th, and we went to Le Coco across the street for dinner. I turned 52 (52!) on Thursday the 30th, and the boys and I sat on the couch, under a dyne, watching Super Size me on NetFlix.