Sylvia's Scenario

I’ve always been intrigued with plum pudding or also known as Christmas Pudding.  What is it, anyway?  I first heard about plum pudding as a child growing up when my family would watch Christmas movies during the holidays.  It was a Christmas tradition in our family to watch certain Christmas movies with  It’s a Wonderful Life  on the top of the list.  But another one we would watch was  A Christmas Carol .  And I was always intrigued with the scene about their Christmas dessert; the Christmas Pudding.  It was such a big deal for the Cratchit family.  I get it that they were poor and probably even the smallest pleasures were a big deal but watching that scene year after year always made me curious about Christmas Pudding.    "But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs Cratchit left the room alone — too nervous to bear witnesses — to take the pudding up, and bring it in.  Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody shou

And here we are again. Our favorite little spot in Spain; the white hill town of Vejer. The grandkids still had a couple of days of school left when we arrived at Nick's house so Nick planned some non-kid activities for us to do while they were in school. The first on the list was going to Vejer. We were here last June  and and it was one of our favorite days.  Above is our winter visit; below is our summer visit.  Cold weather, warm weather...                     We planned to eat lunch here because of the strong Moorish influence. They have a wonderful Morrocan restaurant called El Jardin Del Califa  where we also ate in June.  I had my favorite Moroccan tea again.  And everyone ordered something different since their menu had a lot of variety.  It was catorgized by ingredients and recipes such as couscous dishes, tagine dishes, different meat dishes, etc. We started off with this appetizer sampler with falafel, hummus, babaganoush, tabule, feta cheese & marrakesh salad.  A

                                                              Happy 2024! I can't believe a whole year has gone by already.  I think the older you get, the faster each year goes by.  But we are still in Spain and enjoying being with family so I'm not really thinking that much about time.  I'm just enjoying the moment.     We've discovered a couple of favorite drinks during this trip to Spain.  One would have been perfect for New Year's Eve...if we could have stayed up that late.  (We're grandparents, remember?)   When people think of Spain, they most likely think of the popular drink of sangria or the wine punch made with wine, fruit juice, sweeteners, and fresh-cut fruits with brandy or flavored liqueurs occasionally added to the recipe. They will even sell sangria in bottles ready to drink here in Spain.  During this visit we have learned about Tinto de Verano or “red of summer” wine cocktail.  It seems to be everyone’s favorite drink right now.  It looks like