Sick chef

Jan 5th, Reyes night. When Los Reyes Magos (the magic kings – ie the three wise men) bring presents to all the good kids of Spain.

Honestly, this beardy trio completely kicks Papa Noel’s arse. The whole evening’s news programmes are devoted to tracking them. They’ve arrived in Sevilla, they’ve been spotted in Barcelona, and we must all be good and go to bed early and they might just leave us what we’ve asked for in the morning.

Well what did they bring me? A bucketful of germs. It finally happened, I got ill. So while I could hear the children from next door through the wall doing the riverdance and screeching and hyperventilating, I was on the couch with a duvet. Spaced out from Frenadol.

The annoying thing about it is that I’m not very ill, just mildly ill. I feel slightly sick and weak, my throat feels like it’s been lightly rubbed with sandpaper and I have a pansy strength headache right in the middle of my skull.

But I’m not burning with fever, coughing my spleen up or bunged up with mucus. If you look closely you wouldn’t even know.

It’s bloody annoying. I never get ill – the last time I can remember feeling anything other than tip top (not counting hangovers) is May last year. And no matter how many oranges I eat I can’t shift it.

One good thing has come out of it though – I’ve discovered the bloke can cook. And well! Wonders never cease. He’s taken pity on me and relieved me of chef duty. He even made me a cup of tea.

And on the first night left me speechless by whipping up some delicious Carabineros a la plancha (bigger than a prawns, smaller than a lobster – no word exists for them in English) and an apple and goat’s cheese salad. He even made the sauce by burning up some sugar and vinegar. Wow.

I did have a giggle to myself when he asked me where the square pan was though. “What, the one we left behind when we moved house in 2007?” I guess it has been quite a long time since he got busy in the kitchen.