Our January 1st ritual: a walk followed by a pub lunch. (The empty bottle is from last night, a particularly fine Champagne, gifted by friends some time ago for my 70th birthday.)
Category: New Year
Countdown to Midnight in Madrid
Walked on fresh snow to Coastal Seafoods to pick up shrimp for paella for dinner, but when I saw this line, frozen shrimp from Trader’s suddenly became acceptable. As is our custom, I’ve cued up RTVE Madrid to stream to our TV to celebrate 2024 at midnight Madrid time, 5:00 pm Central.
The Annual Replacement of the Spices
Replaced spices older than (arbitrarily) 15 months for a total of about $8. Freshness is optimized by buying whole spices in small quantities.
Getting New Year’s Done
(Virtually) relocated to Madrid to celebrate the arrival of 2023 at 5:00 pm Central, an annual tradition for us. Set up a VPN to Spain’s RTVE 1, a national public TV channel. With that done, made our traditional paella.
Seeing in the New Year with Seafood
On today’s walk I was on a mission: buy ingredients for our traditional New Year’s Eve paella. Coastal Seafoods, hidden in an industrial area, sells the best seafood in town. It was hopping, so I took a numbered ticket and browsed while fifteen customers ahead of me got served.
Jigsaw Puzzle
Dwight’s mom is staying with us for New Year’s. Set up a jigsaw puzzle that’s guaranteed to become an obsession.
New Year’s Day Tradition
Our New Year’s Day tradition is a long walk and a bar lunch. With subzero weather all day we achieved one out of two. Maxwell’s is our local, a chilly two-block walk.
New Year’s Paella
Our annual tradition: celebrated the new year in Madrid at 5:00 p.m. Central then made paella.
First Walk of 2021
Walked, as we always do on the first morning of the year. The bridge and the decapitated pole are remnants of this former railroad right of way. We’ll wait until next year for the bar lunch we usually include in this first walk.
New Year in Madrid
Decided 5:00 p.m. was late enough to see in the new year, so “went to Spain” (7 hours ahead of Central time) by streaming Madrid TV. Grape Lady squeezed booze out of one of the plastic grapes; love that cork. Once it was 2021 in Spain, made paella for dinner.