Categories
algarving foooood in portugal just life

the fish basket

back in berlin, we had a weekly delivery vegetables in a basket. i’ve always liked the concept and it made sense when we lived there… but around here, with a market brimming with fresh stuff practically around the corner (including bio produce), i can’t really justify the indulgence. that said, i do miss one of the aspects that i liked the most about the basket, which was that it removed the choice element, forcing us to improvise and try new things.

enter… fish.

fish is one of those things that took some time to acclimatise once we moved here. we knew we wanted to try eating more of it (hence #54 on the list) and the market is filled with fresh stuff, but frankly, for a beginner, it’s more than a little daunting to pick and choose what to try… so why not leave that choice to the local fishermen and go with whatever they catch that day? i’m a fan of the throw-yourself-to-the-deep-end approach sometimes.

and this is how we now we have a semi-regular fish basket! :) it comes from fuzeta, a seaside parish of olhão around 15km from here. whatever their group of fishermen catches the day before, it’s delivered in less than 24 hours, gutted, sealed in vacuum and covered in ice — and that’s what we’re having throughout the week.

we’ve only had a couple of deliveries so far, but it has been working brilliantly, and the feeling of supporting the local community on their traditional trades is a great one. plus, we’ve also been trying quite a few new species with yummy results. this week: cuttlefish, ray and horse mackerel.

let the adventurous culinary exploration continue! :)

Categories
analogue wednesdays roll4roll

analogue wednesday #131

back to double-exposures! this is from R4R-24, a roll that kathryn and i collaborated on. she’s in australia and i’m here in tavira, and almost by magic somehow, a few of our images fit together just right. :)

Categories
analogue wednesdays in morocco

analogue wednesday #130

still scanning stuff from our last trip to morocco.

Categories
algarving in portugal

walking on history, XI: a really old tree

when i started this walking on history series, i was inspired by all the sidewalk memorials we stumbled upon in berlin. but what about other kinds of history… like natural history?

there’s this olive tree a couple of towns over, in the middle of a touristic resort by the ria formosa. it’s huge and gnarly and falling apart a bit, the trunk wide and open enough to fit someone inside. and it’s also mind-blowing…

…because it’s one of the oldest trees in the world, with over 2200 years old. just let that sink in for a minute.

this tree was here before the visigoths invaded the peninsula from the north, before the moors took their place from the south, before the christians kicked them out. when portugal officially came to existence in the 12th century, this tree was already a thousand years old, bearing fruit and witness to it all. it “saw” the first sailors leaving towards the unknown a few centuries later, saw the empire rise and fall… and these days, it mostly sees tourists and hears their children’s laughter, splashing in the nearby pool.

it’s still here after all these years, like it’s always been, stretching our perspective of time and making us feel tiny in comparison. a few years ago, we planted a small olive tree on our backyard and now i wonder how long (hundreds of years? thousands?) it’ll live and what things it’ll see. i guess we’ll never know… and i’m ok with that. :)

Categories
video

our favourite youtube channels

maybe it’s a sign that i’m getting old, but what’s with kids and youtube these days? i don’t even mean the creepy, seriously wrong stuff, just… the rest. for instance, i have an 8-year old cousin who’s hooked on minecraft tutorials and a channel about some brasilian brothers doing weird stuff. :| i watched some episodes of the latter at his insistence and got the impression even game play-throughs would be more interesting… somehow, i just can’t get the appeal.

and yet, not having a tv in the house, we end up watching quite a bit of youtube stuff on our lunch breaks. luckily for us, there’s a lot of quality content being uploaded these days! i thought i’d mention a few of our favourites channels, in case you’re looking for interesting stuff to watch now and then.

– on the serious side of the spectrum, we watch a lot of ted talks still, though the format is getting a bit old and it’s harder for them to make an impression on us these days. i guess we’re growing de-sensitised to it, despite the great content.

– also on the more serious/philosophical side, the school of life is nice. i was suspicious at first, but their curriculum series won me over. i enjoy the empathy and perspective that it brings.

– moving over to the science department, we’re fans of veritasium. it’s about physics and experiments, but from a cool contemporary point of view.

– i’m not sure how we found out about tom scott’s channel but it stuck. he focus not just on science, but also an interesting mix of historical facts and quirky places that i enjoy discovering.

– the same tom and a bunch of his friends also produce another show called citation needed. basically, they try to guess facts from an obscure wikipedia page, without much information to go on. tangents and hilarity ensue, with lots of mystery biscuits in between.

– and last but definitely not least, the brain scoop! emily graslie was a volunteer at a small university museum in montana, when hank green (from the vlogbrothers) checked it out on one of his videos to his brother. everyone was delighted by her enthusiasm on that episode, so a new channel was born featuring emily and the museum.

i recommend watching her videos in chronological order, and following along as she is then later offered a position as chief curiosity correspondent at one of the largest natural history museums in the world.

so… there’s still hope for youtube, i think! :) do you have any other good tips? let me know!