{"id":356,"date":"2014-03-04T13:08:28","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T11:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/?p=356"},"modified":"2014-03-28T10:50:45","modified_gmt":"2014-03-28T08:50:45","slug":"happy-frixuelos-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/?p=356","title":{"rendered":"Happy Frixuelos Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frixuelo is the Asturian word for cr\u00eape or thin pancake (tortita<\/i>), and so today being 40 days before the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, I made frixuelos<\/i> for breakfast for Bel\u00e9n and me. Asturians are rightly proud of their culinary delight and I have been lucky to have had a few already at the As de Picas restaurant<\/a> in Gij\u00f3n and at our regular Sunday family meal, courtesy of Bel\u00e9n\u2019s sister Paz\u2019s husband Avelino (cu\u00f1ado<\/i>). It may be hard to give up for Lent.<\/p>\n

\"FrixuelloAvellino\"<\/a>\"FrixuelloJohn\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lent is that holiday in Western Protestant tradition where we give up things (probably because of the Puritan influence on early American life). We give thanks at Thanksgiving but don\u2019t party like its 1999 at Carnival like the Catholic Spanish and Portuguese world does. At Carnival or Mardi Gras (literally fat Tuesday), where perhaps following the Jewish tradition of \u201csealing up\u201d the leaven at Passover, we eat all the household fat in one big binge and then repent until the Easter Rising (an altogether different rising in Ireland, the land of puns and literary turns of phrase).<\/p>\n

So what will I give up? I can\u2019t give up chocolate, it\u2019s too much a part of our lives. Bel\u00e9n and I have both happily inherited a chocolate addiction from our mothers. I think I could give up chocolate if it wasn\u2019t always in the house, but there\u2019s the rub\u2014it always is. And if it\u2019s there, I\u2019ll gobble. Abstinence in this case does not make the heart grow fonder. Alas, I can\u2019t deny Bel\u00e9n. She organizes our weekly shopping around which place has the best chocolate \u2013 Lidl hands down.<\/p>\n

No, I have decided to give up swearing for a month (well for 40 days until the Rising). I really do swear too much, although in my defence I swear only at inanimate objects (e.g.<\/i>, computers and cars that cut in front of me). All I want from a computer is repetition, but when it doesn\u2019t do what it did the last time, the time before, and every bloody time before that, the colourful excuse-my-French comes out. I\u2019m sure more than one neighbour has wondered about my sanity. As for the cutting-in-front-of-me cars, what\u2019s your fuckin\u2019 hurry? Get a life. You sit on top of one of the pinnacles of Western civilization (and its downfall but that\u2019s another story). You\u2019ll get there faster than your grandfather, I assure you, so chill. Eat some chocolate.<\/p>\n

And, sadly, I have decided to give up writing a regular Caracola<\/i>. Not too many people are reading it anyway, well, not according to the number of comments or lack thereof. Not that it\u2019s about numbers in a Benedict versus Francis way, but I had hoped for more of a discussion, some of YOUR thoughts. Thanks to Craig, Isabel, Maribel, Elena B, Terri, and the four obvious link lovers for your comments so far. No thanks to the 6,299 other Spam machine comments. Come on \u201cNice read, I just passed this onto a friend who was doing a little research on that topic. And he just bought me lunch since I found it for him and it made him smile. So let me rephrase that: Thank you for lunch!\u201d* with a link to a whiskey company. What the f*?k?<\/p>\n

Happily, I now understood that a blog is a diary, so it doesn\u2019t matter. I\u2019m not going to change the world with my posts, but this particular work in progress (me!) is progressing. I reread my own posts to remember where I was and how I learned and who I met along the way. I also understand Eamon Ryan\u2019s comment more intimately now about half of all blogs are read only by the writer. Yeah, it\u2019s a diary. And as I wrote in Do The Math<\/i>!, contrary to the great Levitt and Dubner in their fascinating Freakonomics<\/i>, more writers make less criminals. Write on! In fairness I have been busy writing CounterPunch<\/a> articles too, which thankfully are being read.<\/p>\n

One thing I have learned is how much I haven\u2019t missed my own culture. Maybe that\u2019s a function of age. Maybe it\u2019s because I have access to regular English and English-language culture, what with the Internet, the New York Times<\/i>, my regular Skypes home to my mother, and the biweekly quiz at the Blue Sky Caf\u00e9 quiz<\/a>. But also, my Spanish is improving. We saw our first Spanish movie together with no subtitles, the charming and funny Living is Easy with Eyes Closed<\/i> (Vivir es F\u00e1cile con Los Ojos Cerrados<\/a><\/i>), which took home the Goya for Best Picture. I don\u2019t know if it merited Best<\/i>, since I haven\u2019t seen enough Spanish cinema, but it was good, even if [*** Spoiler alert ***] the girl didn\u2019t get the guy in the end. In Hollywood, the girl always gets the guy, even if she was \u2013 in a frankly misogynist way Mr. Trueba \u2013 the only character whose eyes didn\u2019t get opened.<\/p>\n

But I also don\u2019t miss the Oscars (now that\u2019s a real fix-uelo), late-night talk show irony (are than any other kind?), rush hour, Guinness, snow, \u2026 I don\u2019t even miss baseball, having agreed to help out with a local team here, though with the rain I haven\u2019t made it out so far.<\/p>\n

So, fewer Caracolas, and perhaps more diary entries for me. I can happily write about the steel business, a trip to the mining museum, the best restaurants. Tell you what, if you request it I will. Otherwise, I am happy as a frixuelo doing my own thing. And to you, dear, gentle reader, Happy Frixuelos Day, Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras. Hopefully, we\u2019ll all be better for the rising.<\/p>\n

* Edited slightly for clarity, because, well, a machine wrote it.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frixuelo is the Asturian word for cr\u00eape or thin pancake (tortita), and so today being 40 days before the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, I made frixuelos for breakfast for Bel\u00e9n and me. Asturians … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[17,5,9,14],"class_list":["post-356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spain","tag-asturias","tag-food","tag-gijon","tag-tourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":363,"href":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions\/363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}