Gofio made with chicken stock, and chicken stew. Gofio is sort-of cooked flour (you toast the grains before you grind them) and it’s been a staple of the Canarian diet since pre-hispanic times. In principle, you can use just about any grain, although the commonest ones are wheat and maize. In times of famine, there’s even a fern root you can use, although I believe it’s very bitter, and not…
On Saturday night I went to the fiesta in San Miguel, a little village in Breña Alta. It starts off like most fiestas, but the devil appears after midnight, only to be scared off by a cross of fireworks.
Los Llanos del Jable, with El Paso behind The main roads on La Palma form a rough figure 8, with the main east-west road being the LP2 from Santa Cruz to Los Llanos, through the tunnel. But whenever I’ve got time, I like to take the scenic route, the LP203. This winds up through the heather and bayberry forest, then pine forest, past the barbecue and picnic areas at Pared…
My son set off on his scooter for his friend’s house in the next village, and I settled in for a peaceful afternoon’s writing. After just ten minutes, the phone rang. It was my son’s friend. He’d fallen off his scooter, and could I come and fetch him please? The hill between the two villages is really steep, so although I was hoping he’d just need a hug, I was…
The summer’s nearly over, and I haven’t been out much at all. Worse, I haven’t dragged my son away from his video games nearly as much as I planned. So I persuaded my friends in Franceses to come out to see the archaeological site at La Zarza and La Zarzita, in Garafía. Well, I think it’s beautiful. In some ways it reminded me of the Garoé on El Hierro: the…
I’ve been too busy to blog again. The boring part was the heavy cold coming back – so I took it easy for a couple of days to get rid of it. The fun part was my son’s 13th birthday. Yup, we have a teenager. But in spite of all the dire predictions, he hasn’t turned into a werewolf. He’s still a nice kid and mostly polite. We held his…