Because most of my readers (if I even have any left) are my close friends and family, pretty much everyone already knows without my having posted about it that we’re moving back to Washington where I am going to be stationed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.  It’s going to be a great career opportunity and I’m looking forward to getting started, but it’s a bit overwhelming to think about the pace my life is about to hit.  Going from Spain, land of mañana, to an aircraft carrier, land of…well…not land at all but rather nuclear-powered floating highly armed sovereign U.S. territory warship…need I say more?

As many people know, our stay here in Spain has not been quite what we expected it to be.  I’ve always said, and still maintain, that I would have loved Spain if we actually got to live in Spain.  Instead we lived on base, where all of our neighbors - fantastic as most of them have been - are American.  The base is all things American - American TV, American radio, American grocery stores, cars, coffee, language, culture.  And while I love my culture and am prouder than ever to be an American (living in another country can do that to a person), we came here with the hopes and expectations of being immersed in a new culture and we hoped to make friends and learn to speak Spanish well and appreciate everything the culture had to offer.

But I digress.  We’re leaving in 3 days, 13 hours and 11 minutes. 

The time snuck up on us a few weeks ago and I decided, rather firmly, that I was not leaving Spain without traveling more.  So 2 weekends ago a friend of mine and I left the kids at home (with B) and flew up to Barcelona where I soaked up the abundant sun, walked La Rambla and the Gothic Quarter, visited Gaudi’s architectural masterpieces, and, naturally, got my Visa check card number stolen.  Fortunately I put a stop to the payments to Renfe (the train), RyanAir and Vueling, lastminute.com travel agency, and various restaurants and hotels.

The crappy part about having your Visa check card number stolen when you’re moving is that you have nowhere reliable to send a replacement card to. And when you’ve shipped out your entire wallet with your debit card and remaining credit card (who does that?!), that puts you in a bit of a pickle financially.  Good thing I have a responsible spouse who does not do such silly things as ship a wallet out in his household goods.

Upon my return from Barcelona, I worked for 2 days and then B & I had our (10 years late) honeymoon - I took 4 days of leave and we drove our questionably reliable “Rota beater” to Sevilla and hopped a flight to Paris where we spent 3 magical days hitting all the major sights - Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, Arc du Triomphe, the Champs Elysses, the Musee Orsay, the Louvre, Versaille, Moulin Rouge, and even coffee at Amelie’s employer, Les Deux Moulins.  All finished with 300 steps up to the top of the Sacre Couer basilica to take in the spectacular view of Paris.  In between was stuffed with pain au chocolat, meringues, nutella-and-almond-filled crepes, cafe au lait, comte cheese, fabulous sandwiches, rich dinners, and copious amounts of red wine.

We got off the plane, drove back to the base where we picked up our kids, cleaned the house, slept for a few hours and then had a whirlwind of activity - we packed out our remaining household goods and put a “for sale” sign on our car.  On our way back from the office where I made the sign, the car battery died (naturally) and we had to buy a new battery, and while B was in the store buying the battery someone saw the sign and wanted the car.  In a half an hour we went from stressing about what to do with a car when we were leaving in 3 days to having sold the car and being ready to go.

All that’s left now is to pack and do some last-minute cleaning ’round the house.  And then it’s off to Everett, back to the cool and rainy weather that we actually really love.  I think I’ve had enough of this sun now.  I’m ready to be back in America.

We are booking a week-long vacation in Italy next month.  It’s a dual-purpose vacation - 6 days of fun, 1 day of swimming!  Anja is having a meet in Naples in January which sparked this whole vacay and has turned into the most exciting event of…2009!  Well, at least this will set up the year into hopefully a fabulous one.

As our time in Spain starts to dwindle down, we’ve been thinking about how little of Europe we’ve gotten to see.  Mind you, we have done a lot in 3 years - as a family, we’ve gone to Portugal, Iceland, and the U.S., as well as around a lot of southern Spain, but as close as we are to so many amazing places in Europe, I’ve been regretting not doing more.  So Italy is our first stop.

The thing that has surprised me the most is how reasonable the cost will be for us.  For the 4 of us, for roundtrip airfare and a week-long rental car (4 door!), we are paying under $400.  Total.  The hotels I’m finding on Expedia are great, too - about $85/night for the ones I’m looking at.  The hotels we found through Expedia on our Portugal trip were great, so I’m confident they will be adequate for a week in Italy.

Our plan is to fly into Pisa on a Thursday; B would like to “piss on the leaning tower thingy.”  We drive all the way down to Naples on Thursday, arriving in the evening.  Friday we will hit up Pompeii; Saturday we will gorge ourselves on incredible Italian food.  Sunday is Anja’s swim meet where she will kick ass with all the carb loading she’ll have done the day before.  Snort! After the meet, we’ll drive up to Rome, arriving Sunday evening.  Monday we will tour the Colosseum and perhaps the Pantheon, maybe some other major sites if they’re close and won’t take too long, and then drive up to Florence that evening.  We’ll spend Tuesday and Wednesday in Florence, gawking at the incredible art and architecture.  We’ll fly back Thursday morning.

I’ve got ants in my pants from all the excitement - the most excitement coming from the air fare and rental car price!  Zippedeedoodah, zippedeeay!

I’m such a huge fan of Thanksgiving.  After a relatively thorough review of my blog, I noticed that I have never really explained exactly how much of a fan of Thanksgiving I am.

Or maybe it’s because I didn’t realize exactly how much I love Thanksgiving until I ruined it for myself last year, making a small Thanksgiving feast in October.  As I ate my delicious turkey and my artery-clogging green bean casserole with spoon after spoon of jiggly canned cranberry sauce, I felt worse and worse about ruining the day for myself.

Because Thanksgiving is not meant to be eaten in October.  Thanksgiving is not meant to be eaten without a large population of either seldom-seen relatives or obscure acquiantences that you really don’t see unless your meeting involves a lot of pie.  Thanksgiving is not meant to be eaten until the weather is just right, and just right is the weather that happens every fourth Thursday in November.  It must also involve football.  Whether football is watched or not is irrelevant, so long as it’s on the TV somewhere in the house.  I think the circulation of television waves and electrons makes the turkey that much better.

We’re planning on going to our neighbor’s house again this year to celebrate.  I am bringing my obnoxiously Wisconsin green bean casserole, a sweet potato casserole by request of the hostess, and chorizo-apple stuffing - my own recipe.  Because I’m fancy like that.

I have ambitions to make other dishes, particularly a dessert, but I don’t know whether to make a crock pot cake (I may attempt to make a crock pot carrot cake, though I’ve never tried before), a pumpkin cheesecake on a gingersnap crust, or a Bailey’s chocolate chip cheesecake with an Oreo cookie crust.  Ohhh, the decisions…

In return for making a fabulous green bean casserole and trash talking Brett Favre, since we can’t be together this Thanksgiving, I ask that everyone who reads my blog that lives within driving distance of Milwaukee please do me a favor this Black Friday:

Go to Kopps.  And eat at least one scoop of tiramisu custard.

And if you can figure out how to get a pint to Spain, I will send you…I don’t know…some fancy sherry vinegar that Jerez is famous for.  And some saffron.  And my eternal, undying love and affection.

I was very excited for our trip this weekend - after nearly 3 years here, we still had not made it over to Portugal. This weekend being a long weekend - Columbus day, celebrating the Portuguese guy who sailed from Spain to re-re-discover America that had already been re-discovered by an Icelander.  (How do you like that?!)

Now before I go into my plans for Portugal, you should know that I’m generally not much of a planner - I like to make loose plans and just do whatever, but knowing we were on limited time and had a few things we wanted to do, our itinerary was as follows:

Leave around 1:00pm Friday afternoon for the Algarve coast and get to Portimão around 4pm and hang out doing whatever for the rest of the afternoon. Saturday morning, the plan was to leave in the morning for shopping for pottery in Porches, and then off to Lagos (la-GOOSH!) for a boating excursion that would take us to the beautiful grottos along the Algarve coast.  Then we’d head up to Lisbon in the early evening, staying in our hotel in the city overnight.  On Sunday, we’d venture up to Sintra in the morning and spend the late afternoon and evening exploring Lisbon, and then on Monday we’d hit the road early, stopping in Evora to admire a chapel of bones and some Roman ruins.

In reality, though, this is our how our trip went:

Got off work late, finally out of the house about 4pm.  Got to Portimão late Friday night, got lost finding our hotel, missed dinner.  We were so tired by the time we got in, plus it being late and dark and hard to navigate under such circumstances, we just hit the sack as soon as we got in.  Well, not as soon as we got in - first was dealing with the fact that I’d made the wrong reservations for our hotel in Lisbon, something I’d rather not discuss right now.  At any rate…

Saturday, woke up delightfully early and hit Porches for our pottery shopping.  We walked around town a bit, admiring the quaintness, the fun doors and decayed walls, and eventually made our way to a pottery shop.

I loved this shop, where the owner was painting in the back and selling his wares in the front.  He graciously allowed me to take pictures, and I walked out with a beautiful vase and a great, polka-dotted coffee mug.

Next we headed to Lagos where we were going to take our boat tour out to the grottoes.  Of course “the seas were angry,” and our very anticipated boat trip turned into sitting in a restaurant on the pier trying to figure out what to do next.  It was still early, so we didn’t eat but rather decided on a detour to Sagres; more specifically, to Cape St. Vincent, which was once believed to be the end of the world.  A great place to visit on Columbus Day weekend, the scenery was impressive and my mood improved from my earlier grumpiness about missing the boat trip I’d been looking forward to for weeks.

We explored an old fort and a castle in the area and admired the beautiful coastline before making our way back to Sagres for lunch - except that we missed lunch and everything was closed.  Still no Portuguese food, and by now I was really starting to want some Chicken Piri Piri that I kept seeing signs for.

We made our way up to Lisbon Saturday evening and attempted to un-cluster-f*#*) the very expensive cluster-f*#*)$@ I got myself into. The expensive part didn’t change much, but we were fortunate to be able to stay at the same hotel as our friends instead of all the way across town in a who-knows-what kind of neighborhood.  We set out for some Portuguese food but found only a seafood restaurant where I had bass, presented to me head and all.  It was…not what I expected in Portuguese food.  I’d been told how fabulous the food in Portugal was, especially coming from Spain where there isn’t a whole lot of flavor involved in cooking where we live.  The bass was simple, what I’d expect from any restaurant anywhere when it comes to a whole fish being made for my dinner.  The kids were unimpressed, as were our friends who got “vegetable” soup that looked like grass in a bowl of semi-creamy broth, but hey, at least the wine was good.

Sunday morning, another bright and early start to our day.  I was going to get my Piri Piri today, I was sure of it!  We decided to go up first thing to Sintra by train, which was, along with our plan to visit the grottoes along the Algarve coast, the other big to-do item on our list.  I have to say: Sintra did not disappoint.  At all.  In fact, I fell in love with it.  I wish I could move there and live in one of the old, beautiful homes nestled in the hills. Particularly, this one - the one turning colors:

Hiking and bussing our way up to one of the palaces, I was constantly in awe of this incredible town.

We stopped for lunch at a restaurant where I hoped to order my long awaited Piri-Piri, but instead had some unimpressive bacalhau.  While the food was not so great, the location was more eye candy:

This building, like many others, was decorated with ceramic tile.

A further bus ride up a very narrow, twisting road led us to the Palácio Nacional da Pena, where there is no way to describe how majestic and surreal this palace - this castle - really was.

After a very long time spent admiring both the outside and the inside (sorry, no pictures allowed!), we made our way down through the surrounding gardens.

By the time we were done, it was already 5pm.  We decided to forfeit the expensive already-paid-for tour of another palace (are you sensing yet how expensive this trip got for us?) and instead head back to Lisbon so we could get that nice, elusive Portuguese dinner.

But alas, it was not meant to be.  Due to some issues beyond our control, we ended up eating dinner at. a. mall.  Not quite how I expected our last dinner to be, but hey, at least now our kids could find something they liked.  With several restaurants to choose from, the kids had no problem finding what they wanted: pasta.  Boy, do our kids have adventurous taste buds.  (Note to self: next trip, Italy.) For me, piri piri?  No - no piri piri.  None to be found.  Instead, it was Israeli food cooked in Portugal by a Nepalese immigrant.  *sigh*.  At least there was still one more chance, Monday’s lunch.

Isak wolfed down his food - after all, he didn’t eat lunch because he wasn’t very pleased with the food he ordered in Sintra - but Anja just picked at hers, eating only a couple of bites.  After attempting dinner negotiations for quite some time, I finally conceded that she wasn’t going to take one more bite, as she was now complaining of a tummy ache.  I thought it was her way of avoiding eating something she regretted ordering, but an hour later when her bed was covered with puke, I realized her body was telling her that this food just wasn’t right.

After a very late trip to the pharmacy to talk to the Portuguese pharmacist that didn’t speak a lick of English followed by waking with her at midnight, 1:30am, 3am, and 5am while her body fiercely rejected every ounce of food, stomach acid and bile, and finding out that our friends’ son was going through the same thing 3 floors below us, we changed our plans to avoid Evora, preferring the fast route down the freeway and back into Spain where they could puke in the familiarity of home instead.

Despite the many changes of plans (and the lack of piri piri), we had a great time, took many pictures, and are already planning on going back another weekend soon, next time armed with Immodium AD and a restaurant guide that will guarantee me my elusive chicken piri piri.

$2,700 for THIS??  I’m trying to figure out how to justify needing this one….

This post started out as a simple tuna salad recipe but evolved into musings about the food I miss so much from Iceland. We’ve been gone from there now for 6 years and one of the things I miss so much is the food. Partly because it’s so good (don’t believe Gordan Ramsay or Anthony Bourdain), and partly because the food brings back the warm and welcoming memories of B’s mom’s and grandmother’s kitchens. It took me over 3 hours to post this and kept me up until 2am; this is probably my longest post ever and in order to read it, you’ll need to call your doctor for a prescription of Lipitor.

Butter: I was going to put this somewhere in the middle of this entry but realized you’ll need to know right now about butter in Iceland. Watch out Wisconsin, Iceland is moving in for the kill when it comes to dairy. The butter there is so perfectly perfect, and so is just about every other dairy product I can think of. Except maybe that G-Mjölk, the stuff that sits on the shelf until the Second Coming at which time Jesus will be able to pour himself a nice glass of room temperature milk and contemplate maybe a Third Coming just so he can try the butter next time.

Lamb: Pay attention now: If you can ever find a grocery store that sells real Icelandic lamb, do yourself a favor and take out a second mortgage and buy the store out. I’d never been a big fan of lamb, not that I’d eaten much of it before living there because my dad had lambophobia, and ever since I’ve left I’ve never met a lamb I liked anywhere near as much as the ones I met on my dinner plate in Iceland. Lamb soup? Smoked lamb? Lamb marinated in wine and herbs? Mary, bring me my dinner please. And while you’re at it, make me a sweater.

Tuna salad: This is where this post originally began. The tuna salad in Iceland is different. Better. Better than any tuna salad I’d ever had in my life. Ever since learning how to make it right a few weeks ago, my kids now actually like me. Although my very tactful son still won’t give in to my repeated bribes to say “Your tuna salad is as good as Amma’s.”

Dried fish: My sweet grandmother-in-law sent an entire grocery bag full of harðfiskur to us from Iceland when B’s mom and dad came to visit recently. It’s a funny little treat, because one would think that dried fish (haddock) would be pretty, well, gross, but in reality it’s a salty, chewy treat that has so far been unequivocally loved by every child that we’ve given it to. Even the kids that don’t like fish. Now, the smell of it is, to the untrained adult nose, admittedly not the most pleasant aroma, and some may advise not eating a large piece of it before transporting heavily pregnant women in tiny, hot cars, but I’ll just say that it’s one of my favorite treats from Iceland. And my cat’s, too. I know this because he told me right after I found him at 6am on the kitchen floor with the grocery bag that he pulled out of the cabinet over the microwave, opened, pulled out one of the sealed bags inside, opened that, and pulled out a piece of fish to eat. He’s currently on probation and has a restraining order out against B who attempted felinicide.

Icelandic chocolate: Especially the little Gullmolar golden-wrapped delights. I surprised myself when I declared the rum-filled ones to be the best. The chocolate from Iceland is different from all the other chocolate I’ve ever had, and while it probably isn’t the absolute best chocolate on earth, it is definitely one of my favorite treats.

Icelandic pancakes with rhubarb jam: One of the best investments we made before leaving Iceland was a pönnukokur pan. At about $80, it wasn’t cheap but it is the most used piece of equipment in my kitchen. I’m not allowed to go to potlucks or barbeques without a foot-high stack of the paper-thin crepe-like pancakes. They’re often accompanied by B’s rhubarb jam, which is no more than chopped rhubarb cooked down with a whole lotta sugar. A smear of that, a puff of whipped cream, and everyone is happy.

Fresh-caught arctic char: When I was pregnant with Anja, B occasionally got the opportunity to go on an overnight fishing expedition to Þingvellir where he would catch arctic char in the crystal clear, ice-cold water, and then he would come home, clean them up, and pan fry them for me with some potatoes and a generous amount of melted butter over the entire plate. I would like to go on the record at this time to blame Iceland as the cause of my high cholesterol. I’m still surprised I made it out of there with my arteries intact.

Skyr: Everyone who lives near a Whole Foods, I am ordering you right now to minimize your browser, get in your car, and drive there. Fork over the obscene amount of money to buy yourself a little container of Skyr (OK, $2.79 isn’t obscene but for the size and compared to the price of that much yogurt it is!). Come home, add a little milk to thin it out to a yogurt-like consistency, and perhaps a bit of sugar to sweeten it up a little bit, and then you can leave me a comment elaborating your deep, amaranthine love for me for sharing this little secret with you. Skyr is sky-high in protein, with almost no fat, and just may be the world’s most perfect food. It helps that it tastes like a cross between yogurt and strained sour cream, and really, can you go wrong when sour cream is involved?

Graflax and graflaxsosa: I can’t tell you how excited I was the first time I visited Ikea in the U.S. They sell cured salmon and a lovely mustard-dill sauce for it that is nearly identical to what I ate in Iceland that I loved so much.

Caramel potatoes: “Caramel? With potatoes? But Karyn, that’s just gross!” Au contraire, my friends: The most perfect side dish ever to lamb, and more on that later, is small white potatoes glazed with a generous amount of simple caramel - browned sugar and butter. While the goal is to have a perfectly smooth glaze to coat the potatoes, I secretly hope it turns out lumpy whenever B makes it because the little chunks that sneak through are one of my favorite parts of dinner. Sugar during the main course? So daring! So delicious! So stop whining about caramel and potatoes not going together already!

Fish balls: Sorry, no testicles here. In fact, while I’m at it, you’ll notice that any mention of the “traditional” foods that you may have heard of are not on this list. No rotten shark here, no jellied sheep’s head either. But fish balls, so simply made with white fish, onion, egg, flour and milk, and then shaped and pan fried (in what else? Lots and lots of BUTTER!), are definitely a comfort food…I’d make them if only I could find some fish worthy of actually eating here.

Rugbrauð: A different kind of bread. Dense, wet-ish, and dark, it’s best topped with guess, guess what it’s best topped with because I bet you’d never guess I’m about to say butter. The general rule of thumb in our house was that you had to put a layer of butter on the bread that was at least as thick as the slice of bread itself. Really.

Hangikjöt, flatbread, and hangikjöt sandwiches from the supermarket: Hangikjöt is smoked lamb that’s usually only eaten during the holidays, except that the grocery stores sell pre-made sandwiches and one of them contains hangikjöt with remoulade, peas, and fried onions. The fried onions really deserve their own description, but I’ll just say that if you live anywhere close to an Ikea, they sell them there and you must buy a small bag of them and then put them on anything else you ever make in your life. The flatbread is unlike anything I’ve had before, a thin, flat bread that I haven’t quite figured out how to describe; you spread on a layer of butter and then top with some thinly sliced cold hangikjöt and then call your doctor for a refill on your cholesterol medication.

Puffin: I’m mean. But it’s good. It’s really good. And I still feel like shit whenever I see a cute little puffin and can’t stop thinking about grilling it for dinner.

And last of all, I’d like to talk about 4 restaurants that anyone who ever visits Iceland should go to:

B and I met at Bæjarins Bestu on a cold and typically blustery winter night. I never actually got to eat a hot dog until weeks? months? later, but let me just say, they really are the best in the city. The steamy buns, the perfect smoked lamb dogs, the wonderful brown mustard, definitely un-Heinz ketchup, remolaði, and the crispy fried onions make Bæjarins Bestu one of my favorite places in Reykjavik.

Perlan - the Pearl - is overpriced. But the food was great, and the view is unforgettable. The restaurant is a huge glass dome that sits atop five hot water storage tanks and slowly revolves, giving you views of downtown Reykjavik, the ocean, and the Moon-like stretch of the Reykjanes peninsula. In the winter, if you’re lucky enough to have a clear night, the northern lights dance above your head.

Fjöruborðið: The menu is tiny but really, who needs more than the lobster bisque? This tiny restaurant is where I ate for my 30th birthday dinner and was so good that my mouth still waters whenever I think about it. I posted about our dinner here and posted pictures of my dinner here, here, and here, and I just hope that the next time we go visit Iceland we can make it back out to Stokkseyri so I can have another unforgettably delicious dinner.

Hlölla Bátur: One of my biggest regrets was not discovering this sandwich shop until just before we moved away. I think the first time I went there was the day Anja took her first steps. She needed a Sýslumannsbátur, STAT! At “only” about $15 for a sandwich and a Coke, it’s a near bargain for downtown Reykjavik. The sandwiches are hot and juicy and fresh and are perfect food to sustain yourself while you stumble around in the cold looking for a cab to take you home from the bar.

I’m tired from all of this reminiscing. I think I’ll go eat a stick of butter now.