Cork trees

I'd like to register my vote to make cork oaks one of the wonders of the world. This may seem like an overstatement, but they really are one of the most incredible, sustainable and eco-friendly resources on the planet and Portugal accounts for about 50 percent of the world's cork production.

The cork that most people know in the form of bottle stoppers (corks), floor tiles and trivets starts out life as the bark of an evergreen tree; the cork oak (quercus suber). Skilled workers strip the bark of the cork oak every nine years and the tree is left unharmed to regenerate its bark to be harvested again and again, for up to 200 years. This bark makes corks for wine by the billion.

The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) estimates that the 108,000 hectares of Portugal’s cork oak forests – the largest in the world – absorb about 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. It also adds that each cork tree sustains over 100 species of wildlife, including the critically endangered Iberian Lynx.

Portugal's cork forests are under threat, however, as aluminium screw caps and manmade stoppers have replaced natural cork in wine bottles. Next time you reach for a bottle at the supermarket choose natural cork. It's a simple step that helps preserve this small corner of the planet.

Fado ... oops I'm mentioning it

I know, I promised when I started this blog that I wouldn't mention Fado. Well, I'm breaking that promise today and I'm unashamed.

Fado - Portugal's national music - has been given UNESCO World Immaterial Heritage Status. Hurrah to that!

I sometimes wonder if you have to be Portuguese to get it. It certainly embodies a very particularly Portuguese way of viewing the world. The name Fado itself simply means fate, so that gives you an idea of where it's coming from. It's a melancholy type of music/song that tends to be all about what has been lost. Sounds like a bummer, doesn't it? Well, it's actually astoundingly beautiful coming from the right vocal chords and the dextrous fingers of a master of the Portuguese guitar (similar to an onion-shaped mandolin). A good Fado will make you tingle all over; there's something guttural and primeval about it.

On a trip to Lisbon a visit to a Fado venue is a must. The best, in my opinion, are those where amateurs get up and sing. This can make the quality a bit hit-and-miss but that's also part of the charm and makes the good ones all the more worth the wait. Try Tasca do Chico in the Bairro Alto neighbourhood or Tasca do Jaime in the Graça neighbourhood for an authentic and far cheaper experience than the Fado houses catering for tourists. Tasca do Chico for a late night and Tasca do Jaime for Fado in the afternoon (very unusual).

The most famous of Portugal's Fado singers was Amalia Rodrigues and though she died in 1999, she is considered a national treasure. Here she is at her best:

Nem às paredes confesso

More recently the most widely-acclaimed Fado singer is Mariza. And here she is at her haunting best:

Ó gente da minha terra

make sure to listen at least as far as 01:25. I promise it's worth it.

Roast chestnuts

At this time of year the smell of roast chestnuts is everywhere.

For two or three euros you can buy a dozen roast chestnuts off a street seller and fill up your stomach with stodgy loveliness that warms up chilly hands to boot. These days they'll also sell you half a dozen... times are tough.

When you approach the chestnut "cart" the seller gets a sheet of telephone directory paper fashions it into a cone and drops in the chestnuts giving the cone a final twist to seal the heat in.

The chestnut sellers have a wonderful contraption especially designed for roasting the nuts - the design of which has probably not changed much in 150 years - that is oftentimes mounted on the back of a motorcycle. You only see them at this time of year - chestnut season - and I suspect that they've been under lock and key whilst their owners have been selling ice creams over the summer.

Hurrah for little warm parcels of Portuguese autumn pleasure!

Saudade: A very Portuguese word ... sad but positive, I think

“Saudade: a Portuguese and Galician word for a feeling of nostalgic longing for something or someone that one was fond of and which has been lost. It often carries a fatalist tone and a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never really return. It was once described as “the love that remains” or “the love that stays” after someone is gone.”

Onions from down under...

Now, this may seem random, but I flat out refuse to buy onions from Australia. Why not onions from Kazakhstan or Senegal, I hear you ask (because you are asking, surely). Well, they were not actually on offer at my local supermarket, but Australian onions were. To add to the lunacy they cost €1.49 a kilo and the much larger and fresher Portuguese onions in the box next to them – admittedly not packaged in a fetching orange fishnet bag – cost €0.89 per kilo. At what point does a supermarket buyer (and by that I mean the people who decide what the supermarket stocks and not the people who shop there) think, ‘I know where we could get the onions from… Queensland’?

Since way before Portugal had to be bailed out by the EU and the IMF I’ve been an avid label reader, checking all the produce boxes for the origins of my fruit and veg. My previous argument was an environmental one and now it’s backed up by an economics argument that goes something like, ‘buy Portuguese produce so your money can stay in Portugal and help us crawl out of this mire.’ If the supermarket I’m in doesn’t have Portuguese carrots, or potatoes or whatever I sometimes buy Spanish produce and have even ventured to the exotic climes of France and occasionally the Netherlands, but shipping the humble basis of almost every Portuguese dish all the way from Oz is a step too far for me. They might as well start trying to flog me olive oil from Pakistan for all the sense it makes.

I’ll also have no truck with apples or garlic from China (and, yes, I’ve seen that too), grapes from Chile or oranges from anywhere further than the Algarve. There’s no issue with Brazilian papayas or Indian mangoes, these fruits are not, after all, grown here in Portugal, or at least not on a large enough scale to be sold to me. It is true though that I don’t often buy them because I’m certain my carbon footprint is pretty gargantuan as it stands

Call me a radical protectionist, but buying products from another country that are easily produced and plentiful in your own country is tantamount to robbing your neighbours and in my area this is almost literally the case. Where I live, I am surrounded by vegetable producers that supply Portugal’s supermarkets with huge quantities of produce. Every onion, lettuce, or cabbage I buy that is from some other part of the globe means fewer euro cents for these businesses and I could be putting people I know out of a job. This idea also extends to the rest of the country, too. So, Australia, how do you like them onions?

Baby love

I have never been anywhere in Portugal where my babies/toddlers/kids have not also been welcome.

In fact, the only time anyone has openly complained was in an Indian restaurant in the Algarve and the complainer was English. That's the only time in the last five years. Truly.

The very opposite is true in fact. Wherever I go with them and regardless of the mess they make - and they do make a monumental mess, especially in restaurants - I have had nothing but kindness and understanding.

They are always invited to weddings, parties, dinner parties, nights out and every event I've ever attended since my first was born. This doesn't mean I'm not embarrassed sometimes by their screaming or when a spoon goes flying across the room. Instead of the eye-rolling and tutting I have had in other countries, though, here I get supportive comments and people actually communicating directly with my children. Interacting with them; Wow!

This is one of the greatest blessings of bringing up children in Portugal. They are a part of daily life, seen as a part of society as a whole and barred from almost nowhere.

Portuguese tiles - Azulejos

In Portugal tiles - azulejos - are not just reserved for bathroom walls. They are a traditional wall covering and the whole thing has been elevated to an art form.

The word azulejo comes from the Arabic for small, polished stone. This gives away their origins and Portugal needs to thank its Moorish heritage for this fantastic tradition of wall coverings.

The Arab-inspried ones are made up of multi-coloured geometrical shapes, but the Portuguese took this Islamic tradition that did not allow representation of living things and made it their own. Since the Moors left Portugal tiles have been painted with flowers, animals, buildings, battle scenes (as in my example above), saints and every other conceivable thing, quite frankly. A trip through any Portuguese city, town or village will provide you with a glimpse of any number of fantastic painted tiles.

In a more modern twist they are now a favourite way of decorating otherwise gloomy underpasses, tunnels and motorway pillars. Instead of staring at grey concrete or uninspiring graffiti tags we get to look at murals.

In the village where I live even the bus stop has them.

Check out these fabulous examples on Flickr.

"Desenrasque" or the Portuguese art of improvisation

Portuguese people are very proud of their ability to improvise under difficult circumstances and rightly so. There's even a special word for it - desenrasque - and in translation this means something along the lines of muddling through/improvising/getting out of a scrape. It's an extremely useful way to deal with the world.

It brings to mind Macgyver - remember the 80s TV series where the main character got out of all kinds of trouble with nothing but chewing gum and a cocktail stick? - well, that's the kind of imaginative problem solving that desenrasque is all about.

Examples would be useful, I suppose. Just off the top of my head I can think of a couple that demonstrate exactly the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that comes naturally to most Portuguese folks:

One time I took my mini - the old-fashioned kind - to a mechanic because the battery was not being charged. It was a problem with the alternator. The car needed a brand new one, which would take six long weeks to be shipped in from the UK. Un-phased the mechanic broke open the old alternator to see its component parts only to find that the part inside that was broken was exactly the same as the part used in a Fiat Punto alternator. Long story short: I paid for a Punto alternator at less than a fifth of the price of one for a mini, which the mechanic proceeded to take apart for parts for my old alternator. Et voilá! One alternator for a Rover mini in perfect working order in less than 45 minutes.

The other example came from an executive of a Portuguese blue chip company who told me his boss was was from Sweden and believed the best companies are run by a mixture of Scandinavian and Portuguese workers. Intrigued I asked him why. "Well," he said, "When a machine breaks down the Portuguese roll up their sleeves and try to fix it whilst the Scandinavians identify the part that has failed, track down its number and order a new part in case the Portuguese solution doesn't last."

That's what I call a can do attitude.

Soup... yes really... Portuguese Soup

Yes, soup. This is no small deal. Portuguese soup is one of the unknown treasures of the world.

It's nutritious, low fat and absolutely delicious. No cream here, but it's lip-lickingly scrumptious and a great way of filling up on low cal veggies before a main meal and practically getting your "five-a-day" in a single bowl.

Some of my favourites are: Caldo Verde (literally green soup, but it's kale and potato with Portuguese saiusage), Sopa de Abóbora (pumpkin soup), Sopa de Agrião (watercress soup) and Sopa de Feijão Verde (green bean soup).

For something heartier try Sopa de Feijão (bean soup - usually kidney beans), or Sopa de Grão (chick pea soup).

Order soup in a café or restaurant and you are unlikely to spend more than a couple of euros for a nutritious lunch. It always was poor man's food but it's rich pickings as far as I'm concerned.

Find some recipes here. Enjoy!

Joe Portugal on borrowed time (not so positive)

Joe Portugal is a middle-income, blue-collar worker whose finances could be in much better shape and he knows it. He’s maxed out his credit cards, every penny he has goes to pay off loans he’s taken out, and he’s taken on new loans to pay off the original loans. He’s regretting his financial mis-management and he wants to put things right, but the sharks are circling. His friend Jane Hellas plans to stop paying off her own loans because she can no longer afford the interest rates she is being asked to pay and Joe’s lenders think he might do the same so his interest rates are rising, too.

Joe’s lenders took out life insurance, car insurance and home insurance on Joe just in case something went wrong. They want him to keep paying off his loans, but also to get their money if he doesn’t. Trouble is, Joe also lives in a world where anybody can insure his life, his home and his car and now Joe spends his time avoiding deliberate crashes, putting out fires and dodging bullets all whilst working himself into the ground to pay off those never-ending loans. Those folks holding these “naked” insurance policies actually want Joe to crash, burn and die because they get big bucks from his misfortune. Joe is living on borrowed time.

It is time to outlaw Naked Credit Default Swaps that give their holders a vested interest in non-payment of the debts they are insuring. Because anybody can invest in these derivatives and therefore insure bonds that they do not even own, there are many people that are not only hoping, but actively working to send companies, local authorities and even whole nations into bankruptcy. The amount of debt insured by Credit Default Swaps far outstrips the amount of the loans actually taken out. Naked Credit Default Swaps are so immoral that even George Soros, a multi-billionaire investor not usually known for his code of ethics, has called for them to be outright banned.

It is common to hear that Southern European countries don’t have a strong work ethic - John Stewart on The Daily Show recently joked about how Greeks retired “just before puberty” – but most of the people of Greece, Portugal, and every other nation currently surrounded by speculation sharks, do an honest day’s work for a pittance. Traders, investors and owners of these Naked CDSs do less than a minute’s dishonest work for a vast fortune.

Coffee!

Portuguese coffee is wonderful.

Granted it is not grown here, but it is roasted and blended here and there's nothing like it.

I've had coffee in Italy (harsh in my opinion) and in Brazil (just plain awful) both of which you would think were countries with excellent coffee. Frankly they just don't get close to the smooth, strong, delicious coffee you find in just about every café across Portugal.

There are several ways coffee is served here and most people are very specific about the way they like it. Here's a run down of the most common:

Bica / café / cimbalino

Otherwise known as an espresso the humble bica (as it's called in Lisbon, cimbalino in Porto and plain old café across the country) is the staple of the Portuguese café. The coffee blend is mostly smooth, strong and oh so dark. Order an italiana and you'll get what in Italy is called a ristretto or a very small espresso. Otherwise you can ask for bica cheia and you'll get a bit more coffee than normal in your cup, which will make it slightly weaker. Because of the variety of options for your espresso, if you want it just as it comes you may just need to ask for a café normal!

Galão

This is a favourite of northern European tourists and little old ladies (forgive me it's not my favourite at all). It's a milky coffee served in a glass. If you like your coffee strong make sure to ask for it that way and be certain that it's made with fresh espresso. It's great way of warming your hands on a cold day... or burning them if you're not too careful.

Meia de leite (chinesa in Madeira)

This is the Portuguese equivalent of a cappuccino though not quite so frothy. One of my favourite types of coffee. Make sure to ask for a meia de máquina or you may be in danger of receiving something pre-prepared, which entirely misses the point.

There are several other ways of drinking coffee in Portugal, but these three are the most common and should keep you buzzing all the way to lunchtime.

There's something about Santo António...

The night of 12th June is party night in Lisbon. Thousands of people pile into the narrow streets of the city’s traditional neighbourhoods to celebrate its patron saint by sitting at makeshift tables eating sardines, salad and boiled potatoes at more than twice the usual price for such things, listening to cheesy Portuguese tunes and drinking beer from plastic cups. It’s smoky, noisy, stinky and absolutely wonderful.

As my partying days have been put on hold for a few years because of my kids my last few Santo António nights have been pretty tame. I remember a few - way back when? -when I only made it to bed after sunrise and in time to watch the street cleaners fire-hosing the night’s revelries down the city’s drains. Not so any more, but last night had me remembering earlier Santo António nights with my father and staying up way past a normal bedtime. I watched the sheer joy on my five year-old’s face whilst eating a fartura(think long donut with brown sugar and cinnamon) at almost 11 o’clock, my 17 month-old jigging to the sound of the cheesiest and rudest of all the Portuguese traditional songsters - Quim Barreiros - and went back to how lovely these nights felt when I was little, too.

There’s something very democratic about Santo António. Almost every kind of person and of every age is out on the streets and all are doing the same things. Eating, drinking, dancing, laughing. Kids are definitely part of the party and nobody is wondering why you haven’t put them to bed yet or why they’re on their third bowl of arroz doce (rice pudding). It was great fun and my kids will enjoy it next year, too.

Positively portugal... the blog post that started it all

First posted in May:

You’ve probably heard. Portugal is having a rough time at the moment. The IMF and the European Union are bailing the country out of a spot of financial difficulty and - all being well - will be providing 78 billion euros of cash to get the country out of a very tight squeeze. If you listen to the Portuguese news, and to the international news for that matter (I heard Jeremy Paxman refer to Portugal and Greece as “feckless Southern European nations,” last night), Portugal is a miserable place to be right now and we should all be thoroughly ashamed of ourselves.

I won’t try to pretend that measures imposed on the country by the IMF will lead to what in Portuguese is called, ” a sea of roses.” It’s going to be tough and there will probably be a lot of hardship. In Portugal this does not mean that some unfortunate people will have to do without a foreign holiday this year, or won’t be able to refurbish the kitchen. What this means is that the huge number of people who already live on less than the minimum wage (485 euros per month) will have to choose whether to pay the rent or eat. Feckless or not the social dangers are very real.

On a beautiful, sunny day in May like today, though, these worries seem a world away. The sun never shines more beautifully than on this glorious corner of Europe. It is a place worth living in for many reasons. The food is fabulous, the people even more so and for every financial negative that can be railed at us there is a non-financial positive.

I, through no fault of my own, am no longer able to get a new mortgage. Because of the financial situation here all the banks seem to have shut up shop to freelancers like me. It will not stop me enjoying my little piece of Portugal, though. The IMF cannot stop the poppies growing in the fields around my house, take away a free afternoon at the beach, ground the peregrine falcons swooping overhead as I drive to the supermarket or stop my neighbours from leaving gifts of fresh vegetables at my door. Portugal is wealthy indeed.

Start feeling positive...

So I'm a bit sick of all the bad news. In fact, a bit sick is probably putting it lightly. Portugal is bottom of the list in everything, Portugal is going to default on its debt and Portugal is the smallest, worst, ... bla, bla, bla!

I choose to live in Portugal - I could move to the UK or US in a heartbeat because I am British as well as Portuguese and my husband and children are US nationals. I've decided to make a point, though, of remembering why we choose to live here, so this blog is going to be all about why Portugal is worth it.

I know all about the bad stuff, but I'm choosing not to highlight it here, so... if anyone is reading please keep your downers to yourself, but if you've got any good stuff to add or helpful suggestions then go for it.


It's going to include some very trivial as well as some very serious positive things about this small corner of Europe, but it will certainly not be mentioning Fado, Fátima or Football... there are better places to discuss all three of those.


So, here we go. Enjoy the ride.