Tarte Tatin

My effort for today's lunch. I didn't expect it to turn out this well, given the shortcomings of our oven. But the Fuji apples from the supermarket held up well, and I got them thoroughly caramelised in a frying pan before transferring to the oven. My recipe is from the rustic school -- some people get very fancy arranging the apples neatly, but I just tip the quartered apples in higgledy piggledy. As long as they are tightly packed, it works.

S made a "risotto" with some of the leftover chicken. The quotes are because we didn't have any risotto rice, so he used Spanish paella rice instead, and it doesn't give the same creamy texture. Tasted good though.

After lunch, we were still sitting on the terrace when I spotted a twiggy looking thing on the wall of the neighbours' house. It wasn't attached to anything and it was, er, wriggling. Eek! A snake! We crept up to it with the camera; it was making its way up the wall to the roof tiles, and just as it got there it gave a last lunge which caused it to lose its grip and fall off into the stony gully between the two houses, upon which it scuttled off and hid.

I haven't blipped it because I don't want to stumble across it when browsing through my blips. See extra. Or not if you are reptile-phobic. It was very skinny, about 60-70 cm long, and had a dramatic pattern that made me think, "Eeek! Poisonous!" Warning Mystère not to venture into that part of the garden, I hurried inside to inspect the photos on the computer. Googling "Poisonous snakes in Spain" didn't bring up any matches. More rational searches soon identified it as a Horseshoe Whip Snake (Coluber hippocrepis). Which is not poisonous. it strangles its prey or swallows it whole -- not likely to manage either of those with us.


Last night we watched the second episode of Diarios de la Cuarentena. It was very entertaining; they definitely haven't run out of ideas, and it's a nice half-hour diversion.