The challenge in writing my blog from Portugal is that much of our day is spent with Tao; so, when I sit down to write, my mind is filled with thoughts of him. I am acutely aware that banging on about one’s amazing grandchild can be very boring for the reader, so, instead, let me dedicate this week’s post to……my amazing children.
When Bernice and I first started talking about my then upcoming big birthday, I really didn’t want to make an event of it. I was eventually persuaded that changing your prefix is not insignificant. (That extraordinarily clumsy phrase ‘changing your prefix’ is a leaden attempt to capture the essence of the phrase in Hebrew. Area dialing codes in the Israeli landline phone system consist of zero plus a single digit – 02 for Jerusalem, 03 for Tel Aviv and so on. These codes are known as ‘prefixes’. The big transitional birthdays, from one decade to another – in my case, from 69 to 70 – are referred to as ‘changing prefix’.)
A large part of the reason why I was initially reluctant was that I didn’t want to celebrate without the family all being together. Our solution was to have a modest evening at home with our local friends, and then for Esther and Maayan to fly out to Portugal for a week, overlapping with our visit, so that we could celebrate as a family.
So the seven of us enjoyed the whole of last week together…and it was wonderful. The kids all went out into the country, to walk and do a little sightseeing, and also went to Micha’el and Tslil’s land a couple of times, leaving us to babysit. Apart from that, for most of the time, we didn’t do anything much, but just sitting around of an evening with the family was very special. Tao shared himself out between us very fairly, so that we scarcely ever came to blows, and I got to indulge in one of my favourite spectator sports, which is watching Esther and Micha’el – in recent years, Maayan and Tslil as well – simply enjoying each other’s company. To have two children who are, in many ways, so very different from each other, yet who are so close to each other, is a source of pure joy to me.
During the week, we all went to a vegan restaurant in Castelo Branco for what I imagined was to be a celebratory meal. (Good grief – I’ve turned into someone who blogs about what he’s eating!) I only mention this because we actually were photographed together, and I have been asked, offline, to provide some photos of the kids. Not the least enjoyable part of the meal for me was the bill: a mere 52 euro (under 200 shekels) for six adults.
The meal was initially made even more special for me by the fact that I was anticipating my birthday surprise. I didn’t know quite what to expect, although I was praying I wouldn’t get waiters bringing to the table a ‘shaving foam’ dessert replete with sparklers, while singing Happy Birthday, in Portuguese, off key. As the meal progressed, it gradually dawned on me that nobody was going to make a big thing – or indeed even a small thing – of my birthday. I can only hope that I managed to conceal my disappointment from the others.
However, I needn’t have worried, because the actual celebrations took place at home on shabbat. (Yes, our house in Penamacor does already feel like home, which is a lovely feeling, and a great relief, since when we bought it Bernice hadn’t seen it yet.) The kids took total charge, with the exception of Bernice’s signature curry and rice on Friday night and lasagna for shabbat lunch. We were also allowed to provide the wine.
Every Pesach during my childhood, my father, of blessed memory, would order some bottles of Israeli Carmel hock to serve at the festive meals. At that time, Carmel winery produced kiddush (sacramental) wine – syrupy-sweet red – and one or two dry wines. Buying the hock represented the triumph of optimism over experience: every year, Dad would open and pour the wine in eager anticipation, take an initial sip, and swear that he was not going to buy any next year…but he always did.
Since then, of course, Israeli wine has undergone several transformations, and is now at the point where many of its wineries have won international awards. Bernice and I always open a bottle for shabbat. I am guided in my purchases by a comment from Adam Montefiore – the English-speaking voice of Israeli wine – who advises that if you pay less than 25 shekels for a bottle of wine, you are paying principally for the glass bottle, and if you pay more than 150 shekels, you are paying principally for the label. Fortunately, there are many really enjoyable wines in the 35-65 shekel range, which is our particular sweet spot (although I can hear one or two of my readers tutting about our cheap taste).
When we first came to Portugal, in October, we picked up a few bottles of Portuguese wine at the kosher food shop in Lisbon. On our first two shabbatot, we tried two different wines: the first was execrable, the second barely drinkable. Some hasty online research revealed a European Kosher wine supplier based in Brussels, who ships throughout Europe, with free delivery if you buy a case (which can be mixed). So, I sat down one evening and looked through their list. I decided to give up on Portuguese wine but to stay with Iberia, so I ordered 12 assorted bottles of Spanish wines. I also followed my usual policy, of starting with the cheaper bottles, and only moving up-market if we didn’t enjoy them. A very sturdy and well-protected case arrived 3 days later, and, so far, we have enjoyed the bottles we have tried. To be honest, nothing has been as good as the Israeli wine we drink at home, but I regard this as an ongoing long-term research project, and it seems a little ridiculous to pay more here to drink Israeli wine than we do in Israel.
Anyway, back to our celebratory Friday night meal. After we had eaten in Castelo Branco, Esther (on the right in the photo), Maayan (on the left) and Micha’el went off to do their own thing, while Bernice and I drove home with Tslil and Tao. It transpired that ‘their own thing’ was buying the ingredients for the shabbat meals. Esther rose to the challenge of cooking in a strange kitchen magnificently, serving a chestnut and mushroom soup that both nodded at Portuguese cuisine’s love of the chestnut and was deliciously warming and comforting.
She then excelled herself with a dessert that, if you have a sweet tooth, was to die for (and, if you have several sweet teeth and no self-control, to die of) – a chocolate and caramel tart, served with whipped cream lifted by a hefty slug of amaretto.
This delicious meal was accompanied by an original creation from Micha’el, which I will come to in a minute. But just before I do, I have to give you a little background.
After our first decade in Israel, when people asked me what I missed of Britain, I could honestly reply that there was very little, apart from BBC Radio 4. In those days, we would listen to BBC World Service on longwave radio. Fortunately, there was a powerful signal relay from Jordan, which meant tolerable reception in Jerusalem. There were a couple of programmes broadcast on the World Service that I loved: One of these was Round Britain Quiz – a cryptic general knowledge quiz between teams of celebrity experts. In its heyday, the programme boasted several competitors whose erudition and powers of deduction were worthy of the questions set: Irene Thomas and John Julius Norwich being the most worthy. Over the years, the teams have become much less impressive, but the questions have pretty much maintained their high standard. There are only eight questions in each half-hour episode, but each question is multi-part, and answering it usually involves a fair amount of discussion among the team – and often hints from the question-master. If that sounds like your thing, you can sample the programme here.
As well as trying to answer quiz questions, I am, as some of you will know, very fond of setting quizzes. Over the years, I have carved for myself a niche, creating bespoke quizzes for family celebrations. When I started, 50+ years ago, this involved spending days in the reference library. These days, the research can be carried out online, which is much faster and more efficient (but less satisfying, to be honest). The art of a good bespoke quiz is to make it difficult enough to be challenging, but not so difficult as to make people give up, and also to tailor it sufficiently to the interests and strengths of the celebrant (the birthday boy or girl, or anniversary couple), so that they can do better than anyone else, while not making everyone else feel excluded. Apart from the frustration of occasionally having to reject a question as being too challenging for the audience, I really enjoy the craft of themed quiz construction.
Micha’el (in the middle in the photo, flanked by Tao and Tslil) presented us on Friday night with an exquisite quiz, just sufficiently challenging to keep us fully occupied between courses, but ultimately solvable. Everyone pitched in – except Tao, but I’m prepared to cut him some slack at this stage – and, between us, we cracked all of the questions.
Micha’el had brilliantly devised questions that played to some of my strengths; he had also included some questions that required a knowledge of Hebrew, and some that were focussed on Jewish tradition, while others were genuinely general knowledge. It was tremendous fun to solve the riddles, and immensely gratifying to see Micha’el sharing some of my passion for the genre, and matching, if not exceeding, my talent.
Let me leave you with a taste of the quiz. All of the questions were to do with 7 or 70. Here is one – general knowledge – question. If you can find the letters for the spaces under the pictures, you may then be able to fill in the answers 1–7. Please feel free to comment.
If you want to see what Micha’el does when he isn’t setting fiendish quizzes, you can follow his,Tslil’s and Tao’s youtube channel.