Are you able to draw?

I don't! Well, or at least I thought I wasn't able to. Thanks again to Flow magazine, I made a small trial today. I have followed their mini-course: how to draw figures?, by Caroline Ellerbeck. These are my first results:

I mean, considering I do not see myself as a very artistic person, aren't they lovely? So, from now on, when my children ask, "mama, draw for me this or that", I will be actually able to draw something cute! Check the Caroline Ellerbeck's blog; really inspiring!

How to cook king prawns

Thanks to my aunt, and her recipe, we were able to celebrate Christmas in Kigali in a pretty Spanish traditional way. First of all, it was the issue to find the prawns (got them at Benalco) and later on, the sherry. But with all the ingredients in my hand, it was not that difficult to follow the recipe. Be patient, and you have a guaranteed success!

INGREDIENTS:
- 1 kg of frozen king prawns
- 2 lemons
- Garlic
- Fresh persil
- 3 ladles of olive oil
- A cup of dry sherry

INSTRUCTIONS:
- Defreeze the prawns You need to defreeze the praws the evening before. Full a big pot with water, salt and lemon slices. Let the prawns in the pot during the whole night.
- Cleaning the prawns In the morning, you need to remove the water and spend some time removing the feelers.
- Preparing the prawns Add salt and pepper to each prawn and place them carefully in a shallow wide pot (for example, 22 or 24 cm diameter). Add crushed garlic and fresh persil, the juice of half a lemon and a cup of dry sherry. In a separate pan, warm up a 3 ladles of olive oil. When it is warm, distribute slowly the hot olive oil in the pot where the prawns are. Let the prawns at least two hours in the fridge marinating.

- Finalizing and serving Do not follow this step until you are sure that your guests are ready to eat the dish! Take the pots from the fridge and cook the prawns just until they change color from grey to pink, around 5 minutes. Do not let them cook further or they will quickly become dry! You can either serve them in the pot, or separate the prawns from the sauce, and serve the sauce in a separate dish.

Enjoy your meal!

You may be interested in the following posts:

• Cooking a traditional cocido
• How to make pepernoten
• Tomato salad with salted cod
• Banana cake (first trial)
• Banana cake (second trial)

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Paul had a Christmas show at school, including singing and dancing, as best as they could, three Christmas songs. I know pretty much all the Spanish Christmas songs, but I was not familiar so far with Rudolph. Paul loves it! So, we cut a small reindeer using hard paper, painted a red nose, and made the sleigh as well. Handy as well, are Rudolph's legs. We used clothespins, and they are very stable, so they whole structure stays in place.

And if you still find yourself in Christmas mood, please, go and sing along!

Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose.
And if you ever saw him, you would even say it glows.
All of the other reindeers used to laugh and call him names
They never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games.
Then one foggy Christmas Eve Santa came to say:
'Rudolph with your nose so bright,
won't you guide my sleigh tonight?
 Then all the reindeer loved him
as they shouted out with glee,
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer,
you'll go down down in history.

More about Rudolph here.

Dowry giving ceremony in Kigali

We were invited to a dowry giving ceremony in Kigali. We have learned that a Rwandan man pays the dowry to the family of the bride. The dowry is the money (or cow) that the man's family pays to the woman's family in the process of marriage. So, quite a different story that in other countries like India! 

In this ceremony, no cow was given (to our disappointment), but money. The bride's family was sitting in one side of the room, (the bride was not present), and the groom's family was sitting on the other side. A lot of speeches and comments were exchanged between the two sides, most seeming an exchange of jokes. Unluckily, our knowledge of the local language is very limited, so we could not follow much!

Anna, of course, did not miss her chance to sit as much as possible with the groom. At a certain point, and when the dowry was accepted, the bride came into the room, and some dancing and singing took place.

I was very happy that we could be present, but I do not recommend it for European children who are not used to sit in a chair for more than half an hour!