{"id":1751,"date":"2016-12-06T12:09:26","date_gmt":"2016-12-06T11:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=1751"},"modified":"2016-12-06T12:15:35","modified_gmt":"2016-12-06T11:15:35","slug":"week-48-thanksgiving-la-finca-autumn","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=1751","title":{"rendered":"Week 48: Thanksgiving, La Finca, autumn"},"content":{"rendered":"

The highlight of the last week of November was Thanksgiving. It is of course just another working day here in Spain, but we celebrate it with the full Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday night, to which we invite our Spanish friends for a sampling of traditional American food, albeit washed down with better wine and beer than is usually the case in the US \ud83d\ude42 Remaining with the food and drink theme, we also had a holiday lunch at La Finca in Elche, a Michelin-starred restaurant. That event was organised by our wine club Bacchus and we got a special price, which made the food taste even better.<\/p>\n

48_1<\/strong>
\nAutumn has truly arrived, and some mornings our local park looks like this when I walk Cheeta:
\n\"R000571\"<\/p>\n

48_2<\/strong>
\nIt is Thanksgiving, and my wife has prepared a nice table. We are five couples altogether:
\n\"R000583\"<\/p>\n

48_3<\/strong>
\nOur friends arrive:
\n\"R000585\"<\/p>\n

48_4<\/strong>
\nThe food is still being prepared. This is customary when we invite each other for meals; it gives time to have a few drinks before sitting down for dinner:
\n\"R000589\"<\/p>\n

48_5<\/strong>
\nMost of the food is now on the table:
\n\"R000603\"<\/p>\n

48_6<\/strong>
\nAnd here comes the star of the show:
\n\"R000602\"<\/p>\n

48_7<\/strong>
\nAs is tradition, we continued to eat the leftovers for a couple of days, including Cheeta who appreciated very much having some turkey added to her dry dog food:
\n\"R000643\"<\/p>\n

48_8<\/strong>
\nThe next day it was back to work, and as we always do on the last Friday of the month, we had our drink and snacks session at noon:
\n\"L1012905\"<\/p>\n

48_9<\/strong>
\nLater that day, I was running an errand in the city and spotted these hungry pigeons at a restaurant:
\n\"L1012906\"<\/p>\n

48_10<\/strong>
\nOn Saturday we had the lunch at La Finca. We paid \u00e2\u201a\u00ac60 per head for a meal that normally costs \u00e2\u201a\u00ac100. You pay for Michelin stars. But we were in good company, including Maria, a Belgian colleague with whom I used to work during my first few years at the office:
\n\"R000614\"<\/p>\n

As one expects in this kind of restaurant, the food was a feast for the eyes as well as for the palate. The next four images show some of the dishes, with the original Spanish names.<\/p>\n

48_11<\/strong>
\nSetas de Oto\u00c3\u00b1o con yema de corral cocinada a baja temperatura<\/em> (wild mushrooms with egg):
\n\"R000612\"<\/p>\n

48_12<\/strong>
\nLomo de merluza con vichyssoisse de berros, aceite de coco y dados de calamar<\/em> (hake with berries):
\n\"R000619\"<\/p>\n

48_13<\/strong>
\nSolomillo de ternera con salsa de Calvados<\/em> (beef in Calvados sauce):
\n\"R000623\"<\/p>\n

48_14<\/strong>
\nAnd then dessert–Saquito de chocolate blanco con frutos rojos<\/em> (white chocolate with berries):
\n\"R000624\"<\/p>\n

48_15<\/strong>
\nFernando is the president of the wine club, so he is serious about recording the wines were were drinking:
\n\"R000615\"<\/p>\n

48_16<\/strong>
\nMaria just enjoys herself:
\n\"R000633\"<\/p>\n

Finally, a couple of pictures from Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

48_17<\/strong>
\nOutside my local bakery:
\n\"L1012909\"<\/p>\n

48_18<\/strong>
\nCouple looking out from the Venta Teresa rest stop on the way to Puerto de la Carrasqueta:
\n\"R000637\"<\/p>\n

The next day I flew off to Italy for almost an entire week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The highlight of the last week of November was Thanksgiving. It is of course just another working day here in Spain, but we celebrate it with the full Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday night, to which we invite our Spanish friends for a sampling of traditional American food, albeit washed down with better wine and beer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1535,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1751"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1751"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1754,"href":"https:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1751\/revisions\/1754"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}