El Gato es Muerto!

I think I killed a cat. Last night the cats were at it again. I have transformed sleepless frustrating nights into fun urban wildlife sport by having a couple of water baloons at the ready. Listen it's not like I'm nailing feral cats everynight it's just that they start doing the feral cat thing which is fighting, and yowling and hissing and none of the nieghbors do anything other than complain. So a well placed near miss with a small water baloon is 1. kinda fun and 2. stops those suckers in a heartbeat. So they started up, they were in range and heck, I tossed one. Immediate satisfaction. No more yowling.

So I get up and look at where the cats were and the big one is laying there... not moving. Uh oh. I go back inside. I come back out. No movement. Uh oh. Uh oh. I quickly get rid of the evidence, emptying the remaining projectile in the sink and hide the bag of yet to be filled ones deep inside cupboard in the kitchen. I wake up my wife and tell her hoping for "of course you didn't kill the cat, he must have already been dying" or "of course the cat's not dead, he's just sleeping." What I get is "You're horrible. You killed a cat." Great. My mind is racing, Zoe will wake up and see the dead cat. The cat is in place where it can't easily be retrieved and we are going to see a slowly decomposing cat everytime we come out on the balcony. Zoe will smell the dead cat and see it but of course this won't matter because as soon as Zoe get's up my wife will tell her that your father killed the beautiful black and white kitty. Oy yoy.

I go back and look at the cat. He moved. Bastard.

Sopa de Pollo

Yesterday I got up at 6 and tossed three chicken carcasses in a pot and browned them. In Spain they will happily sell you the aforementioned chicken parts and bones left over from the girls hacking off the more desireable pieces. I don't know where this stuff goes in the States but in my house it goes into the pot at least once a week. Look I'll put a scrawny drawn and quartered Spanish chicken skeleton up against one of those sad, fat 6 legged hormone injected monsters they call a chicken back in my home country any day. These Spanish birds are the Antonio Banderas of poultry. Short, tough, wirey and ruggedly handsome; hombre they'll clean you clock for breakfast. So here you go: Sopa de Pollo de Abuela (Grandma's Chicken Soup).

Fry until sort of golden 2 or 3 fresh chicken carcasses in olive oil in a pot. After it all looks pretty cooked cover the carcasses with water. Bring to a boil. then simmer for like 4 hours. Yep. 4 hours. Take the carcasses out of the pot and set aside until cool. Strain the broth though a wire collander. Let it cool for a bit and then put in the fridge until the fat has congeeled on top of the broth. Scrape off the fat and save it as a sexual lubricant... no save it for cooking... potatoes fried in this stuff, shmaltz as our Jewish friends call it, are astounding. Oh about those carcasses, sometime I pick off nice bits of chicken meat and toss them back into the soup. But to tell the truth after 4 hours you might as well use soggy cardboard, all the flavor is in the pot.

OK a little more olive oil in the pot or some of the schmaltz and fry some chopped up vegetables; carrots, turnips, celery, green beans, think like your Grandma, a head of garlic or 6... I added some chopped up tomatoes and yow! off to Italy we go! Now pour back in the broth and lot of salt and simmer until the vegetables are soft. Zoe and I like noodles in our soup thank you very much so I toss in a couple of those egg noodle birds nests thingies about 10 minutes before it's time to eat. And time to it is!

August in Barcelona

I've been in Barcelona before in August but this year it seems to be even more barren than usual. Vacciones. OK the tourists are still thronging around the the barrio gotico and the Ramblas but up here in the Eixample it seems a little lonely. The market is pretty much closed as is the bakery across the street. It seems that the only places that open are the second string bars that are bound and determined to squeeze the last euro out of the tourists and the few locals that are left. It's telling how much the day to day rhythms mean to me. Spain is all about rhythms.