Blast from the Past

Sadly, since the whole getting married business, TOH and I have not had much time together - he's been gallivanting here there and everywhere for conferences, and I have been working rather a lot. Last night we attempted to remedy that a little. We had another swing dancing lesson (we have FIVE WHOLE MOVES now), and then wandered to the Highline for, shamefully, my first jaunt up there. Although admittedly, we mostly just sat down. That dancing business is tiring.

Then we got to the real business of the evening: Tia Pol, a glorious Spanish restaurant near the Highline, was doing a calçotada. Admittedly, it's a little late in the year, but that's a by-product of the tremendously late spring we have here in New York.* Calçots are big sort of spring onion things that you roast and eat with a thick garlicky tomatoey paste called romesco sauce. Calçot season is usually over by mid-April in Barcelona, so it was an unexpected bonus to be able at the end of May to drink cava, eat calçots dipped in romesco sauce - and then stuff our faces with txipirones (baby squid), jamon serrano, pa amb tomaquet (bread with tomato), pork belly, pimientos de padron (fire-blasted serrano peppers with salt), accompanied by a lovely rosado Txakolina - the slightly effervescent Basque wine with which I am currently obsessed.

Sadly, the iPhone I have cannot possibly do justice to the hilariously bong-like vessel from which we drank our cava, but here are a couple of very dark photos from the evening. I ended up with cava all down me, frankly, but a fun way to attempt to drink, if not desperately efficient.

* If it even deserves the title of "spring" this year. It essentially has been two weeks of vaguely pleasant temperatures, five weeks of torrential rain and cold, and suddenly it's 85 and sweaty. Ah, New York.

Colourful

The photo I put up yesterday reminded me of how glorious the Bo Kaap was. One of the things about coming back to NYC is a reminder of how... grey everything is. Well, it's also metallic, blueish, white, black... but all so cold looking, even though it's often, particularly in the form of the Chrysler building, utterly beautiful. But it all seems a bit flat, on occasion, and I get a yen for the streets of Barcelona, where you often see a green building, or blue; the use of colour by the Modernistas really was remarkable. I miss that. Which is one of the reasons why I loved the Bo Kaap so much. So I thought I'd share it with you.

This street was just stunning - one different colour after the next.

I loved the juxtaposition of this frankly garish salmon pink house - which I think housed a museum - with the woman in the hijab. There was just something great about the sight. I think what really is amazing and doesn't come across in the photos is that you are constantly aware of the presence of Table Mountain, looming (in this case) over what would be the top left corner of this photo.

I just loved the painted advertising on this store. It was amazing to see it because you get used to it in other parts of Africa, but seeing it in such an otherwise modern, Euro-like city like Cape Town was surprising. Nearby, there was a glorious shop full of spices, herbs, dried chillies and other assorted goodies. Ramadan had just started, and I remember thinking what an extraordinary test fasting must be in that situation, surrounded by luscious smells, things that constantly remind you of how wonderful eating is.