Taberna de Jam, Grenada Spain - our first taste ...

After almost 2 weeks in Morocco, we found ourself back in Spain. We flew into Madrid and then took a bus ride several hours through the hills of olive trees and arrived in Grenada. It was warm, we were tired & hungry. We drop our bags at the wonderful Carlos V hotel, which was a recommendation from Io & H, and take a shower. All refreshed, we venture outside to see what's on offer. We step out of the hotel and there is a small park lined with orange trees, all blossoming. We both stop and take in the incredible smell ........ Then like a gleaming light in the not-so-distance we see Taberna de Jam. It's already bustling with people so we head on over.



Now we had heard about Grenada being one of the few places that still offer a free tapa with every drink purchase, but for our first taste of this was pleasantly surprised. We ordered 2 of the Andalucian Tinto de Verano which are a refreshing mix of red wine and a sparkling lemon soda. The accompanying complimentary tapa is a little sandwich, on a little olive oil bread with slices of Jamón and a handful of potato crisps.



We then order a few little dishes from the menu, the first up, an Andalucian cold soup, salmorejo. It is thick & rich, with boiled egg & Jamón and a slice of toasted bread.



Then is a little brioche bun, with sliced Jamón, fried potatoes and a little quails egg. If I could have that sort of brioche bun each day for breakfast I would be one happy girl .... well, anytime of day in-fact.



Well, it was time to move on and discover some more of this little town, but we were very happy to have this as our local.




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Breakfast in Greve

We easily got into a routine while in Tuscany recently ... and each day started with breakfast at Cafe le Logge. A beautifully made cappuccino, of which are churned out from behind the counter at an alarming rate !! and today, a simple yet unbelievably delicious combination of mascarpone, tomato and basil.



This keeps us going until we pass by the bakery ... how could we possibly resist fresh baked pizza bread - a slice of one with ripe, fresh tomato and then a slice of one generously sprinkled with salt & green olives.

Grill master Doraemon.

Not wanting to waste our time in the sun, I mean after six months of snow we were transparent, the beach was the only thing on the schedule during the day for us. So it was left to the nights for time to find something tasty. Years age we used to go to a small stand on the side of the main road for really good som dtam and grilled chicken, looking for the same place again we found that the stand has expanded to now a full structure with real walls and everything.

The grilling has now been taken over by younger family members who have moved the grill stand across the road to make more room for the woks and such at the original place. They have squeezed into a small grassy space next to (uhggg) yet another girlie bar.



They only open one at a time, the wok side during the day and then the family migrates across the road to grill at night. The smell of the grilling meat as you walk past is intoxicating, you can almost taste the flavor. We had to have some.





First night grilled pork, grilled chicken, beef salad and salad of three crispies.

The pork, a huge chunk of goodness, soooooo good, carriying all the promised smokey flavor as well as the grill rendered fat.



The chicken was still as good as we remembered, crispy on the outside and soft and moist in, the light tumeric marinade giving it something else.



The beef salad was a real fire starter, packed with loads of chilli. Also apple eggplant, tomato and asian celery all coated with loads of limey dressing. Thai style salads tend to have a lot of dressing so you have some for your rice.



The three crispy salad, well thats what we read yum sam krop - salad, three, crispy, though we could and probably are mangling the language, was indeed a three crispy salad with deep fried pork skin, deep fried chicken and tiny school prawns along with cashews, shallots, tomato and asian celery all tossed with a slightly sweet, chilli dressing. First time for this one and wow it won't be the last. I mean spicy, sweet, sour and crunchy, it's got it all.



So full after trying to finish it all we rolled home only to be back a few days later, on this night the grill was manned by a two foot Doramon who was studiously grilling her packet of potato chips one by one around the cooking meat.







Thinking we had learned our lesson about portion sizing the other night we only ordered three things, a tom yum, a white fungus salad and some sun dried pork.

The pork - Muu dat diaw - is more of a drinking snack but it's tasty any time, marinated in fish or soy sauce, coated in a varitey of spice and left to dry in the sun before being deep fried and served with chilli sauce. It's quite addictive.



White fungus salad was great, usually seen the dry but the fresh fungus had much more texture, and we learnt a new Thai word; Het huu nuu khao - white fungus.



The soup was where we came undone. It was huge, easily enough for four, it must have had a whole school of prawns in the bowl. Really good but we just couldn't finish, sorry.



We came here once and there was a shack, we came back a few years later and its grown, what'll be here next time??? Just don't go changing the food!!

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Getting ready for winter ....

Since arriving in Hokkaido in October, we have wanted to take advantage wherever possible of the amazing local produce. We have been busily bottling and preserving whatever we could get our hands on to get us through the long, cold winter.

Wandering to work one day, out the front of the Reading Room was a table covered in amazing baby Roma tomatoes and white eggplants. After arriving at work and expressing our excitement to M1 we were back with a handful of ¥ ..... there's a great little sign advertising "Locally grown Organic Niseko produce" and an honesty box, asking you to pay what you think the vegetables are worth to you... How cool! But as we arrive back, a little truck pulls in unloading more veg. Conveniently it's the farmer himself, so here the relationship begins with Dennis.

We buy the entire contents of the table, and have arrangements for delivery of whatever else he can spare for us.... There's white eggplants,



& Mini red & yellow Roma's.




We made a delicious eggplant, chili & fig chutney. (Which we're now using on the charccuterie plate) and did some tres cute little jars of pickled eggplants. This recipe was found in Stephanie Alexanders the Cook's Companion and is so delicious. It says they will keep for a few months, but ours are disappearing at an alarming rate on antipasto, panini's, pizza's and everything else!



Pickled Eggplant
adapted from Stephanie Alexanders the Cook's Companion

1kg eggplant (we were lucky enough to have organic white Hokkaido eggplants)
¼ cup kitchen salt
100ml red wine vinegar
about 200ml extra virgin olive oil
For layering1 hot chili, sliced finely or chili flakes
2 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
mint leaves or thyme sprigs
fennel seeds (optional)

Slice eggplants into 5mm thick rounds. Spread out on a tray, sprinkling each layer with salt. Place another tray on top and something quite heavy, like a large jar of olive oil, and leave in the fridge overnight. This is to remove excess moisture from the eggplants.
Rinse slices very briefly in cold water, and the dry really well.
The slices can then be grilled with a little olive oil. We don't yet have a grill so we fried them in a pan until they were nicely golden on both sides. Remove from the pan and allow to cool a little.
Transfer the eggplant to a stainless bowl or tray and drizzle over the red wine vinegar. Leave the eggplants for 1 hour, to absorb all the vinegar.
Layer the eggplants with tongs or a fork into hot, sterilized jars adding the chili, garlic & herbs alternately. Press down very well and cover with olive oil. Release the slices from the side of the jar with a fork to remove any trapped air. Press down once more and fill to the top with oil.
Seal the jar and leave for at least a week (if possible :)) before eating.
If air has been correctly excluded and the jars are perfectly clean this pickle will last for months. Keep in a cool dark cupboard to prevent deterioration of the olive oil.
Makes 1 x 500g jar.

Then with the tomatoes, 80kg in total, we were constantly drying and semi-drying. Our combi oven certainly had a workout .....



We would love to be using these super sweet dried tomatoes for so many more things, but they only have about a 10% yield after dried, so they've been saved exclusively for our salad on at Sekka. Next year we just need to get in much earlier and have Dennis grow us about 500kg :)