A Really Bom Natal

This holiday season, we found ourselves at home, the one in Portugal. It was, initially, difficult for us to spend the end of year holidays so far away from family and friends. We return to the USA for them about every other year now so we can reconnect with people and places we love. But as we spend more time in Portugal, we develop better connections and friendships with the people we know here and this year, we did the holidays up right.

It began with Thanksgiving. No, there is no Thanksgiving in Portugal, but we celebrated one. The first trick is to procure a turkey, if you’re into turkey that is. Since Thanksgiving isn’t a Portuguese thing, full turkeys require a little advance planning. So, we marched down to our local Talho (butcher), Antonio, and pre-ordered one to be delivered on the morning of our Thanksgiving gathering. This was one fresh turkey. Antonio had to even pluck a few feathers off and, well, sever its long neck which I did not want to have to deal with later. I asked him for some tips for preparation, just to get his advice with a turkey this fresh and in Celsius. With Melissa madly preparing side dishes and desserts with me as her sous, after preparation, we dropped the turkey into the oven at 165 degrees as recommended by Antonio. Alas, we (I) left it in a bit long and had started it a little early, so it was slightly dry and done a couple of hours before dinner time. Making the best of it, we carved it up, stored it in the frigorífico (yes, that’s the word – how fantastic is that?) and, after serving confessions of overcooking to our assembled guests, served it at dinner time with a short microwave warm-over. The dryness was (mostly) overcome with some freshly made cranberry sauce and gravy and, well, white and red wine, but it was the company we kept, friends from Texas and California and a visitor from New York City, for which we were most thankful.

On to Christmas… Our building in Portugal has become a bit of a mini-UN with friends from Brazil, South Africa, Egypt, England, Ireland, America and, of course, Portugal. So, we decided to host the building (and a few others) for a Christmas cocktail hour on a Saturday afternoon. Two weeks after our Thanksgiving feast, back into baking and prepping mode we went with my better half doing her thing of carefully selecting a menu and laboring for two days over a perfectly constructed array of bites and tastes including a few non-alcoholic concoctions for the younger set and non-drinkers. We’d been having lots of rain but were gifted an absolutely beautiful and sunny day for our party which, after a slow start (about which we were slightly worried), the party got going and was over before we knew it. We went to bed thankful for our great and close-knit and close-by community here.

Finally, we were hosted by our Portuguese neighbors for a traditional Portuguese Christmas Eve dinner. We had thought our invitation was for a drop-by for drinks, but it turned out we were invited and expected for the whole of the festivities beginning with Spanish chorizo, Portuguese bread and cheese and home-made (meaning from harvest to bottling) olive oil from our hosts’ small farm in eastern Portugal. Following the appetizers, the bacalhau (cod) plates arrived. If you go into a Portuguese supermarket at Christmas (or really most times of year) you will see sheets of cod lying out, dried and salted, waiting to be purchased, reconstituted and cooked in one of the alleged 365 ways the Portuguese have to prepare it (one for each day of the year, they say). We had two preparations on Véspera do Natal: a traditional boiled version with carrots, potatoes and chickpeas and a baked one covered in broa de milho (crumbled cornbread) with potatoes (the latter being our favorite). Then out came, no joke, about 10 different pies and desserts including chocolate cake, two different versions of bolo do rei (cake of the king), a caramel tort, and an unbelievably high pile of crueller-like deliciousness that would make any Dunkin Donuts patron’s mouth water. Full of cod and sweets, the gift giving and opening began around 11pm and showed no signs of letting up anytime soon when we slipped away to await Santa at our own house shortly after midnight.

Our unexpected crashing of this lovely family’s entire Christmas Eve and all of our other end-of-year celebrations made us feel welcomed and warmed by this lovely place, these lovely people and this lovely culture where we’ve chosen to make our home. And to all a good night.