Diarios de Madrid

I make it a point not to bore people too much with talk about my sideline as a designer of standards based websites, although I don' always quite succeed in doing that.
And I apologize in advance as this post has absolutely nothing to do with my activities in Madrid.

I'll keep this very brief: if you're on a windows PC and you're still surfing the web using Internet Explorer you owe it to yourself to check out Mozilla's Firefox.
A better and safer browser, and with a lot more functionality (tabbed browsing, integrated search, live bookmarks etc...) than IE has now. That's without even mentioning the huge array of extensions and plugins available for this browser.
Available for all platforms (Windows, Mac OS X and Linux), Firefox is easily installed, copies all your favourites and bookmarks so you're up and running in no time.
There's an installation manual if you need a hand.

On a related note: for those who want to finally rid themselves of Hotmail, I still have several invites to Gmail, Google's mail service.
Just a with "Gmail please" as the subject and an invite will be heading your way.

End of sermon. Have a nice day. Make it Foxy.

We live in a world in which John Lennon gets shot while Barry Manilow cooooooontinues to put out fuckin' albums.
I mean, if you're going to kill someone have some fuckin' taste, will you?
I'll drive you to Kenny Roger's house...

Bill Hicks

I may be living in uptown Madrid but if you live in a flat without any kind of heating then you must resort to other means to get warm. Times like these call for a nice cup of hot soup and this next recipe is one of the best soups you'll ever eat; my flatmates devoured this soup in less time than it took to cook it...
For the Antwerp crowd, the essential ingredient for this soup, the chorizo that is, is available at the Spanish Bodega in the "Zirkstraat". If you're feeling bold try the spicy ones. At the end of the recipe there's an alternative vegetarian version as well for those who don't do chorizo (you know who you are).
Again this recipe is very easy to do so even women who don't cook™ should be able to pull this of.

Ingredients

• 3 - 4 chorizo para freir (the kind you can fry)
• 4 carrots
• 2 small soup leeks
• 1 big onion (preferably red)
• 2 small sweet potatoes (or 1 big one)
• 3 - 4 red bell peppers (depending on size)
• tin of chopped tomatoes (I prefer the Elvea brand, for a smoother taste see if the bodega has tomato frito)
• 2 - 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced in half
• about 1 liter of vegetable stock
• optional: red chili pepper(s), stock cube (without glutamates por favor)

This is how we do it

• peel, slice and dice all the vegetables
• slice the chorice in half lengthwise then slice in chunky slices
• get your pot or wok hot over a medium fire
• start frying the chorizo over a medium fire. This will release a lot of delicious, deeply red-coloured fat. fry for about 3-4 minutes, then scoop out the chorizo and keep about 4 tablespoons of that fat in your pan/wok
• turn the heat up and add the onions, carrots, sweet potatoes , garlic and peppers and fry while stirring until the peppers go soft. If the mixture goes a little dry add a bit of extra virgin olive oil.
• add leeks, fry for a further 2 minutes
• add tomatoes, fry for a further 2 minutes
• add stock, a stock cube and simmer for about 10-15 minutes
• add about 1/3 of the chorizo chunks to the soup and puree the soup using a handmixer or blender
• add rest of chorizo chunks and a few grinds of the pepper mill
• eat piping hot with some crusty bread and enjoy!

For our veggie friends: something similar can be done without the chorizo but you'll need a bit of pimenton, which again the Spanish Bodega normally sells. Before you add the tomatoes, add about a small teaspoon of pimenton (you really don't need a lot of this) to the mix and stir for about a minute, then add a glass of red wine and reduce the wine by half.
Now continue as in the rest of the recipe.

The first recipe on this blog, the one for pesto, elicited a record 5 comments, by all means let me know what you think of this one!

The first time I came across manteros was when I just walked out of the Fnac in the center of Madrid, just off the Plaza del Sol.

The modus operandi is always the same: a big sheet is spread out on the street and on it illegal copies of the most currently popular CD's and DVD's are displayed for your buying pleasure. By the first sign of police the sheet is pulled together and faster than you can say "Catalunya is a nation" the manteros have disappeared.

It's pretty weird the see a copy of the new Luz Casal compilation, which inside Fnac retailed for close to 30€, lying on a sheet and selling for only 2€. Even stranger is seeing movies on a copied DVD which are currently still in theatres and nowhere near to an official DVD release. As of today police are clamping down on this kind of activity and not only the selling of these copies is illegal, buying them is now illegal as well.
Good luck to the Guardia I say, as according to official statistics last Christmas in Madrid alone 40.000 copies of these copies were sold.

And get this, the local Blockbuster will not allow me to rent a DVD because I live in a piso compartido and have no offical address so to speak, but I can buy the DVD from a mantero for less money than it would cost to rent it.

Spanish logic again or just the power of free enterprise?

I'm in my regular Starbucks when suddenly they ask me whether I want the Christmas Special, which (as people who know me well will tell you) is like waving a red flag at a bull.
My cup now says: "Solo es Navidad una vez por año".
Well, Hale-censored-luja!

This lyric by the fabulous Loudon Wainwright III says it all:

Suddenly it's Christmas,
Right after Hallowe'en.
Forget about Thanksgiving;
It's just a buffet in between.
There's lights and tinsel in the windows;
They're stocking up the shelves;
Santa's slaving at the North Pole
In his sweatshop full of elves.

There's got to be a build-up
To the day that Christ was born:
The halls are decked with pumpkins
And the ears of Indian corn.
Dragging through the falling leaves
In a one-horse open sleigh,
Suddenly it's Christmas,
Seven weeks before the day.

Suddenly it's Christmas,
The longest holiday.
When they say "Season's Greetings"
They mean just what they say:
It's a season, it's a marathon,
Retail eternity.
It's not over till it's over
And you throw away the tree.

Outside it's positively balmy,
In the air nary a nip;
Suddenly it's Christmas,
Unbuttoned and unzipped.
Yes, they're working overtime,
Santa's little runts;
Christmas comes but once a year
And goes on for two months.

Christmas carols in December
And November, too;
It's no wonder we're depressed
When the whole thing is through.
Finally it's January;
Let's sing "Auld Lang Syne";
But here comes another heartache,
Shaped like a Valentine.

Suddenly it's Christmas,
The longest holiday.
The season is upon us;
A pox, it won't go away.
It's a season, it's a marathon,
Retail eternity.
It's not over till it's over
And you throw away the tree.

No, it's not over till it's over
And you throw away the tree;
It's still not over till it's over
And you throw away the tree.